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tanja_alina_berg's review against another edition
4.0
A great book describing what happens when we die. The author is a journalist and her deeply personal story on discovering death makes the whole book.
“The first person you see dead should not be one you love.”
The first dead body I saw, I found in the cellar of missionary colleague of my parents, after following the trail of tiny red ants. I was four. The second was a man, dead by cancer, when a town bureaucrat insisted the lid
of the coffin be removed. The jaundiced faced and the smell of decay hit me at the same time. The bureaucrat retched. I didn’t. I’d been at his death bed, and he smelled before life had left his body. I was ten.
I’ve seen my dead grandparents and yes, indeed, been grateful that their dead bodies were not the first one I encountered.
“The first person you see dead should not be one you love.”
The first dead body I saw, I found in the cellar of missionary colleague of my parents, after following the trail of tiny red ants. I was four. The second was a man, dead by cancer, when a town bureaucrat insisted the lid
of the coffin be removed. The jaundiced faced and the smell of decay hit me at the same time. The bureaucrat retched. I didn’t. I’d been at his death bed, and he smelled before life had left his body. I was ten.
I’ve seen my dead grandparents and yes, indeed, been grateful that their dead bodies were not the first one I encountered.
mikkynixon's review against another edition
5.0
Super interesting to see the “death industry” from different lenses within it! Information was in-depth yet always respectful.
jollybean's review
informative
reflective
4.0
a solid introduction into all kinds of death workers and the death industry as a whole.
sara_scussel's review against another edition
5.0
Took me a while to get through this, but this was a very interesting read and I would highly recommend it!
shannondel's review against another edition
5.0
A fascinating look into the various ways people work around death and why they do it. Hayley Campbell's writing felt real and inviting while still being honest about the difficult scenes she saw when interviewing people for this book. Definitely shifted my perspective on how I view death. Highly recommend.
morganmorganmor's review
3.5
An interesting and stabilising look at death. Very solid interviewing, largely emotionally precise, and felt like Campbell wanted to meet the people she met on their level .The first two-thirds were very good, but it could’ve done with some cutting down at the end as it felt a bit like the author just wanted to put all the research in without it being beneficial.
kbohnke's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Death
bethanie22's review against another edition
5.0
This book was incredible!! I worked 10 years in veterinary medicine where death was a daily, most time induced, occurrence and my younger brother is a funeral director so the subject of death and dying is not one in which I am unfamiliar. As I do not have the experience (thankfully) of daily human death I am constantly asking him what it is like, what different religious services entail, what is the worst you've seen gross wise, what is this instrument for, etc. etc. etc. Therefore not all of this book was a new concept for me but I was enthralled and it really did make me think of things in a different way and think about death workers that are not just the obvious ones!! I loved it and I have already recommended it to my brother and I will absolutely read it again!