I am really torn between three and four stars on this one. I think for now I will round it up and after I've had more time to think on it I might change it. As morbid as the premise of this book is, I really enjoyed reading it. The author tells her experiences and opinions about the death industry in a very entertaining way. And more importantly, she explains all the reasons that talking about death shouldn't be considered morbid. Mortuary science is not for everyone, but I think that being able to understand death and take care of a passed loved one is not too much to ask.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Honestly, this is just a unique nonfiction book because it handles a topic that most people are uncomfortable with (I love books like that, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was a 5-star read for me). Caitlin uses her own experiences, as well as other field experts and literature to evaluate the state of America's relationship with death. Some of the information was really surprising to me. For example, the fact that so many professionals (police officers, funeral directors, etc.) will lie about things (corpses must be removed from homes in a certain amount of time, corpses are required to be embalmed, etc.) just because the alternatives make them uncomfortable is unbelievable. Another thing that was surprising was that the homeless and unclaimed dead in LA are used, without their consent, for mortuary school labs. That just blew my mind. Ultimately, I'm all for using the dead for good purposes like organ donation/scientific research/education, and I recognize that the arguments about dignity in death are flimsy, but this just seems like overstepping. *sigh* Another example of how America hates poor people.
Decomposition was just another reality of death, a necessary visual (and aromatic) reminder that our bodies are fallible, mere blips on the radar of the vast universe.
Going into this book, I thought it would be solely about working at a crematorium - the day-to-day tasks and stories plus some of the science. This book is actually told almost as an autobiography. Caitlin talks about her life at different stages in her career and about how working in the funeral industry molded her own opinions on death. She makes some excellent points about why green burials are more appropriate than other options, and why embalming to make a corpse more "natural" is morbidly unnatural. She talks a lot about how stigmatized death is, and how our society needs to learn to accept death as a part of life. As the Ancient One said, "Death is what gives life meaning." It honestly has made me think twice about what my own wishes would be. In a word, this book is deep. Fortunately, Caitlin's writing style is still light-hearted enough to balance out those heavy topics.
The only cons of this book is that there wasn't enough original content to warrant the writing of an entire book. The book is already short (<280 pages), and I think that it would have been 200 or less if it had been edited correctly. Many chapters start out with a long tangent that is only very vaguely related to the chapter topic. The book spends several pages giving the summaries of two different versions of The Little Mermaid, only to relate that to the fact that children should be exposed to death at a younger age. I think these fillers were used because there wasn't enough content to work with. However, Caitlin only references her YouTube channel, blog, and organization (The Order of the Good Death), and I feel like there would have been plenty of content there to use. For example, a whole chapter dedicated to popular questions she's answered on Ask A Mortician would have been cool.
So that's the verdict: it was enjoyable with only minor structural issues. If you liked this book you should definitely check out Stiff and vice versa!
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