Let's Hope for the Best

'I think the world should read it' LISA TADDEO, AUTHOR OF THREE WOMEN

A Guardian Book of the Year

After the unexpected death of her partner, Carolina Setterwall found herself bereft and rudderless at thirty-six, faced with the seemingly impossible task of raising her son alone.

In this remarkable Swedish memoir about grief and guilt, memory and intimacy, she explores the nature of bereavement itself - the difficulty of learning to live with the ones we love, and the trials of living without them.


The last night, I fall asleep believing we have thousands of days ahead of us. We don't. This night is our last night.

One evening, Carolina says good night to her partner, Aksel. Things have been tough for both of them recently, especially with an eight-month-old son to raise. So when Aksel dies unexpectedly in the night, Carolina's world is turned upside down.

Based on the author's own experiences, Let's Hope for the Best details the small moments of life before and after tragedy. It's a story about motherhood, family and the difficulties of loving someone who is distant, and then who is gone. Brave and unsparing, packed with emotion and humanity, it is about how the life we envisage for ourselves can be altered in an instant.

What if one moment changed everything you've ever known?
'The most compelling book I've read in years' The Times