What sounded like a book about someone wallowing in self pity turned out to be a complete surprise. Rio tells an honest and interesting account of the Major Events in his life and how he coped or didn't cope with them. A revealing and open look at the Lifestyle of a famous Footballer and what it takes for them to succeed professionally, costing him emotional growth. His Background which also left him unable to be an emotional adult. And then Meeting the love of his life and becoming a father. He tells of the heartbreak when his wife gets sick and dies and how he struggles to fill her shoes . Finally he Shares how he needed help and how he managed step by step to help himself and his children. Not just a self help book, but also a complete Story.

The most beautifully written book. Heartfelt and distressing in equal measure.

This book was an eye opener, very moving very emotional. It was hard to believe what he was going through but very strong to do this and get his family through it as well. Very Emotional

I watched "Being Mum and Dad" on BBC One when it was broadcast and I don't think any documentary has ever touched me or had such a large impact on me as this one.

In this day and age when there is so much fight for feminism and Woman's rights I do strongly feel more needs to be done for men and in particular their mental health. Rio Ferdinand has taken a huge step in raising this point with his documentary and new book "Thinking out Loud".

85% of the people who seek help after losing a child are woman. Over 1/3 of men abuse alcohol after experiencing the loss of a loved one and suicide is vastly higher in men. I know a lot is being done to encourage men to speak out but is the help actually there for them, or anyone, when they finally find the courage to do so?

The main focus of this book is to tell Rio and Rebecca's story. He pays homage to the strong, amazing and loving mother, friend and wife that Rebecca was before she lost her life to cancer and how her death affected himself and his children.

He talks about the amazing services available for families dealing with grief. He raises awareness of the lack of services. He raises the question of why we don't discuss death? He talks about the stages of grief, the one most strongly portrayed is denial. He talks about guilt and his struggle with being a single parent and he talks about the other amazing people who have shared their stories which have inspired and enabled him to find hope.

One of the most encouraging things about this book is that you can tell it has been written by Rio. It hasn't been edited to be fancy, to show him in an amazing light, to act like he is now a therapist in dealing with grief. It is raw, imperfect and honest.

I felt frustration, sadness, inspiration and so much sorrow reading "Thinking out Loud" but most importantly I felt hope. Rio has shown with the right help and support life can go on. Life can get better and one day you will smile again.

I could go on forever about the impact this book and documentary will have on men's mental health in the future but we would be here all day. I am truly grateful to Rio for finding the courage to share his story and for helping so many others. I wish him and his children all the best for their future and I hope he continues to fight and raise awareness for men's mental health and dealing with grief.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book made me both laugh and cry. Some chapters were heartbreaking to read but there was so much love in them. I really loved it and it definitely made me think very hard about life and what can be thrown at us. What Rio and his family have gone through is heart breaking and I admire their bravery and courage in how they have dealt with things. Wish them every happiness in the future. Thank you for letting me review this book.

Although I have no interest in football or celebrities, and had not seen Rio Ferdinand’s documentary, I was interested to read this account of how he got through this most devastating period of his life. This is a well written and brutally honest retelling, and Rio reflects on earlier influences in his life which affected the way he dealt with his grief. I have no doubt that this book would be helpful to others who have similar difficulties expressing such emotions, Rio’s meetings with other bereaved fathers provided further insight into coping with one of the most horrendous events in life, the loss of a wife and mother. This book was heartbreaking, but left me with a new found respect for Rio Ferdinand.

I don't normally read this type of book however I did find it interesting. It was very hard to read in places but think it has been written very well. Would recommend.

found this memoir based on his wife battle with cancer and his coping measures very heart warming and very interesting on how people cope with the loss of a loved one and how it effects the whole family and friends.

I "enjoyed" this book even though it was hard to read at times due to the subject matter. Very well done and very honest.

This book definitely puts life into perspective, it makes you think, it makes you value everything you have. You don't know what you've got until it's gone.
I genuinely do think that it will be a massive help to people.

I have to say I was a bit sceptical at first when I was offered this book as I hadn’t seen the documentary that Rio had done but had heard nothing but praise for it. It’s also been a long time since I’ve read an auto biography. The first thing that hits you is that this book is Rios own words and not that of a professional author. This is what made the book even more endearing and you couldn’t help but fall In love with Rebecca too.
It was an open and honest biography about Rios own childhood and his own demons on and off he football pitch. It also gave you a different dimension with the inclusion of others stories and letters. It is definitely a book I shall revisit again in the future but for now my tears from the first and last chapter have finally dried. Thank you Rio.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. What an emotional read and not written just for sympathy but with heart. I actually have always admired Rio as a player and as a person and this has just made me admire and more importantly respect him.

This book was absolutely heartbreaking but so honest real & beautiful.
How a family has to adapt and how their routines have changed forever. But without moving on but just adjusting to the new.

Firstly,this is not a book about football. It is a journey of self discovery and developing resilience after having one’s life devastated by personal tragedy. It is about how to become strong and not become defined by the past. It is courageous in opening up of feelings by a person who is by circumstances private, but also by profession and background, someone who should not show weakness.
It almost gives permission for people similarly affected to ask for help without shame. It is not brooding and self pitying but positive in it’s aim to inspire and help others get back on a trajectory of meaningful, guilt free, hopeful life. History will show how pioneering this book is and many readers will develop optimistic futures they never thought they could have.

Close to my heart. Very upsetting and well written.

When we think of footballers we think of arrogant men who believe the world revolves around them. As a Manchester United fan I knew that Rio Ferdinand was a very private person, so I knew that he was not your typical, big-headed, self-obsessed sports celebrity. When I heard that his wife had died I felt a wave of sympathy wash over me for him and their three children, and for their families, but then I didn’t really give it much thought after that. Reviewing his book brought me back to that time in his life and I tried to recall what I’d read about Rebecca’s death at the time. All I could recall was that she was in her early thirties, and that she’d lost her fight with breast cancer.

This account of how Rio struggled to come to terms with the death of his wife and how he felt like he was failing his children gives an insight into a very private time in his life. Some people may not appreciate that he talks so candidly about his grief, his inability to cope, but his message is a powerful one; what support is out there for grieving widowers?

Rio Ferdinand is a self-confessed unemotional person. As a professional footballer he lived a very sheltered life in terms of how a household runs, and how to bring children up - in other words, he had no clue. Both of those tasks had been the domain of his wife Rebecca, but in the wake of her death he felt useless and unable to cope.

The book gives a little background information on Rio and Rebecca’s private lives, which I think is crucial in gaining the perspective that was intended when this book was written. The picture that is painted by Rio is one of a dedicated wife and mother who proudly keeps her home and children’s lives running like clockwork so that Rio can concentrate on his footballing career. He talks about how they had bought a property out in Portugal, a property that they had planned to spend many years enjoying once Rio had retired from professional football. Rebecca never got to enjoy that holiday home, her life was cut short before Rio had retired, leaving him crippled by his grief and having no clue where to turn to.

Asking for help was not in Rio’s nature, but this was something he had to learn to do for the sake of his children. All that Rio knew was how to be a professional footballer, The tools he had learnt to be at the top of his game were useless when it came to caring for his children, and this added to the struggle he was facing.

Talking about his grief, how he was almost consumed by it, how he eventually sought the help he needed, and how he began to move forward without Rebecca makes this a raw and often emotional read. This is not a feel good book, nor is it a self help book, it is one man’s account of how he struggled through the sea of grief that losing his wife caused. The important message within this book is that noting will ever prepare you for losing a loved one, grief is very personal, no two people grieve the same and this is important to remember. The book also offers information on where you can find help if you need to.

I don’t think this is the type of book you can say you have enjoyed, reading how one man almost drowned under the sea of grief that had engulfed him does not make for pleasant reading. The emotions are raw, the struggles are real, Rio’s experience is heartbreaking, but the aim of the book is to highlight all of the above and try to point other grief stricken people, particularly me, in the right direction. The book was written after a television documentary had been broadcast about the exact same subject. It is a very honest account of how Rio sunk into the abyss after Rebecca died.

Thinking Out Loud (Love, Grief and Being Mum and Dad) is a biography by Rio Ferdinand. Although he is obviously a very famous football star, with Rio playing 81 times for the England team during his career, football plays a secondary role in this story. The focus of the story is Rio’s family life and his wife Rebecca. Starting off positively, we learn how Rio and Rebecca meet and come to be a loving husband and wife, with three wonderful children. Unfortunately, a long life was not to be for Rebecca and it’s a hard read to discover that she has cancer. Rio has to look after the children whilst she struggles with treatment, fighting for life. It’s a fight she loses – and I’m not ashamed to confess it brought me to tears. Rio was left as a single father to Lorenz, Tate, and Tia who had just turned 4, and this is primarily a journey of how a family is torn apart and put back together and the emotional destruction that losing a loved one wreaks, for everyone in so many different ways.

Rare is the celebrity biography on my bookshelf, but this one drew me in with a story of grief – but also of love. The love that he feels for Rebecca shines through, but above all else, you see a man who has to change and grow and step up to the plate when his number is called. He may start with some shortcomings (which he is very honest about), but he is a fantastic father and the love that he holds for his children is evident. This is a book that should appeal to anyone, regardless of your interest in football and even regardless of whether you have children. We all have someone close to us that we can lose and we can all experience great tragedy that tears life as we knew it apart. This book is a haunting reminder to cherish your loved ones and hold them close. The rich and the famous are not immune to death and despair and the end could come for any one of us at a moment’s notice. Being reminded of one’s mortality is not a pleasant thing – I’m one year older than Rebecca was when she died – but it can be something that gives us strength and motivation to make the most out of the days we have.

This personal tragedy must have been incredibly hard to talk and write about, and in the BBC1 Documentary “Being Mum and Dad” that accompanies it, you can hear and see the pain and emotional turmoil that Rio has gone through. This is very evident in the book as well, which is ghostwritten beautifully by Decca Aitkenhead. Decca spent a month with Rio writing his story and he couldn’t have picked a better ghostwriter, as she herself has experienced both the loss of a mother to breast cancer and the loss of a spouse. Rio is brutally honest about everything – about how football had come first before family in the past, how he barely knew how to do any domestic tasks, and about how he had been in complete denial about the possibility of losing his wife and being left to fend alone. Of course, in the back of my mind, I’m reminded that he’s not really alone because when you’re a millionaire you can take quite a few shortcuts!

Ultimately, this is a raw, honest and heartbreaking story that his children will one day read and look back on. I hope I’m never in a position to experience this level of personal loss, but if I am, I think remembering back to this book will be helpful.

I have spent 2 days completely absorbed in reading this book. Saying that I enjoyed it, kind of feels wrong but, I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean – despite the topic I could not put it down and it really left it’s mark.

I actually bumped into Rio whilst staying in a Manchester hotel many moons ago (probably around 15 years back!) Other than the fact he played football, I pretty much knew nothing about him until watching his heart breaking documentary earlier in the year. Seeing he had a book coming out I knew I had to read it, as I knew it would go even deeper than the documentary.

This book is a mixture of a biography and a self help kind of book. It starts off by delving you into Rio’s childhood, he is completely honest with why his upbringing made him such a closed book, and why it’s so difficult for him to show and share his emotions. He then takes you through his professional footballer journey, which again is brutally honest, and you can easily see that he was not an easy person to live with, and extremely tough on himself. Of course we also get his life with Rebecca, who sounds like a truly wonderful, selfless lady, it’s incredibly emotional hearing how she’d put her own life on hold so he could have his career, knowing that when he was retired they had all the time in the world to spend as a family – she’d spent so much time building the dream home, dream holiday home and then never getting to that chapter. I can’t honestly imagine the pain that caused both Rio and Rebecca.

Rio not only takes us through his own struggles of the grief and grieving process after Rebecca’s death, but also how he was thrust suddenly into single parenthood to 3 young children who had just lost their mother, and also didn’t know how to grieve or really understand. How could he help them when he couldn’t help himself? To fully admit all his struggles and force himself to get help for his and his children’s sake, and share it for all the world in a TV documentary and, a book, is a brave thing to do. I do 100% believe with what Rio says here….

“But I do wonder why schools don’t teach children about death, as a standard part of the school curriculum. We’re taught about birth at school, yet the one thing we know about every creature ever born is, that one day it will die. And we do nothing to prepare ourselves for it. When it happens, we don’t know what to do”

This book shows that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or how much wealth you have, death will hit you one day and everyone’s grieving process will be different – there’s no correct way to grieve, or deal with the grief you’re feeling, there’s no timescale, but there are ways and means that can help, and talking about it and sharing your emotions should not make you feel ashamed (at any time, not just surrounding the loss of someone).

Despite his regrets about Rebecca’s death (not allowing her to share her wishes with him and plan things how she wanted) I’m so glad that with his change of attitudes and beliefs he had the chance to do it the right way for his mum at the end, and I hope he has some peace with himself for this.

This is a raw, honest and very powerful book – one that everyone must read. I have the utmost respect for Rio Ferdinand for sharing his story and what he’s learnt through his heart-break, in the hope it will help others (which it’s clear to see from all the support, that it has and will continue to) There’s no doubt his boys will be super proud of him when they themselves can read this, and I wish him and his family much happiness.

An emotional read that gives an open account of the tragedies that the footballer Rio Ferdinand had to endure. It shows how people cope with such grief and was an interesting read.