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breadbummer's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Child death, Cannibalism, Mental illness, Suicide, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Colonisation, Pregnancy, Sexism, Addiction, Miscarriage, Racism, Fatphobia, Car accident, and Misogyny
Minor: Sexual content
nikenacs's review against another edition
4.75
The ins and outs of the crematorium are interesting enough, but the true strength of this book is in its reflections on our society's attitude towards death. Absolutely 10/10 on that front. As someone who has had little to no contact with death in my personal life, this gave me a lot to think about.
Very US-centric, which is not a bad thing, but instead made me very curious to research how the funeral industry works in Germany, and Western Europe in general.
A tad superficial at times, oftentimes a chapter ended just when I felt like we were really getting into it. I appreciate that it combined more light-hearted personal memoir elements with philosophy and history as well as politics, but it could have been a tad more of the latter for my taste.
But all in all, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this opened my eyes on how we treat both our dead and our dying. Will be recommending, will be checking out more of Doughty's work.
(And on a personal note, I knew I was right when I wanted to set up my testament and funeral wishes when I was in elementary school! Take that, parents.)
Graphic: Gore, Blood, Car accident, Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Vomit
Moderate: Cancer, Violence, Cannibalism, Fatphobia, and Terminal illness
Minor: Addiction, Miscarriage, and Abortion
finnickdeservedbetter's review against another edition
5.0
Themes
• Death positivity and death plans
• The American/western Death industry
• Confronting the fear of death
• Death practices
My Thoughts:
Baby's (23yo's) first memior!
I was already familiar with Caitlin prior to reading this. Both through her YouTube videos and having read her other two novels.
Favourite Quote:
Graphic: Grief, Death, and Child death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide
Minor: Medical content, Blood, Miscarriage, and Death of parent
harrimyers's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Blood, Cancer, Terminal illness, Child death, and Dementia
Moderate: Alcoholism, Car accident, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Addiction, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Fatphobia
Minor: Cultural appropriation and Colonisation
alicroz34's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Blood, Addiction, Miscarriage, Dementia, Cannibalism, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Racial slurs, Addiction, Sexism, Racism, and Misogyny
cmlalonde's review against another edition
5.0
Caitlin tackles dark topics unapologetically and with a sense of humour.
Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Death, and Child death
Moderate: Mental illness, Cancer, Miscarriage, Car accident, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
dragonterriers's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Miscarriage, and Child death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
dragonwithapen's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Gore, Child death, Suicide, and Death
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Miscarriage
cadence99's review against another edition
2.5
•the discussion of death practices in various cultures
•the authors personal musings on how best to manage the image and processing of death
What I didn’t like:
•chapters feel a bit disjointed in their themes
•the repeated use of race as a descriptor for ONLY non-white people when it is irrelevant to the narrative of the story being told
•pretty gross anti-fat comments, primarily in one particular section where she talks about her coworker declaring that despite the medical examiners determination to the contrary, the person MUST have died of a heart attack from being so fat and “This is why you can’t be fat!”- in addition to describing in great detail how fat bodies smell worse, but then dismissing the coworkers comments as “just fact” (even though he is literally ignoring fact by assuming the mans cause of death is not the one determined by the examiners professional assessment)
• in the same scene as above, repeatedly bringing up how her coworkers continually mistakenly say the person is Mexican, despite him being Salvadoran
•irrelevant added story where a coworker says they should fire bomb the city of San Francisco because it is a “hell pit”
Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Cancer, Car accident, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Infertility, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Ableism, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Suicide, Terminal illness, Abortion, Blood, Dementia, Racism, Addiction, and Child death
rhi_reading's review against another edition
3.5
I awarded the book 3.5 because while the subject matter was interesting, the prose was a little over-written and quippy for my taste. The author’s breeziness around morbid topics is a key feature of the book that does benefit the text overall, but there are times when she would have benefited from drawing back a little and letting the actual topic at hand speak for itself instead of trying to cram in a pithy observation or half-hearted joke.
Graphic: Gore, Dementia, Medical trauma, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Child death, Death, Suicide, and Miscarriage