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hevlav's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Incredibly solemn yet surprisingly hilarious. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but Roach did a wonderful job of balancing the sad and gory with reflection and fun. I’m glad I already don’t eat meat, because there’s no way I would after the many many comparisons between cadavers and lunch.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Suicide, Animal death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Blood, Gore, Child death, and Death
tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
funny
informative
slow-paced
Yet another nonfiction book I should've either read as soon as I put it on my tbr or deleted when I couldn't get to it right away. While some parts were laugh-out-loud funny, some of Stiff's humor has aged poorly. (And some of it I just plain didn't find funny: Roach knows how to set up the joke, but she doesn't always land the punchline.) Also, her 2021 edition epilogue did little to address the ways options for human remains have changed, even just in the US, since the book was first published in 2003.
Most alarming to me, as a death educator, is Roach's insistence that all decisions about a person's remains should be left to the survivors, rather than the deceased. This privileged view ignoresfollowing:
Most alarming to me, as a death educator, is Roach's insistence that all decisions about a person's remains should be left to the survivors, rather than the deceased. This privileged view ignoresfollowing:
- Emotion. When a loved one has just died is a terrible time to make a lot of decisions. Even if you absolutely do not care what happens to your body after you die, even if you genuinely believe it should all be up to your survivors, you need to talk to them about it now (maybe especially if). Tell them that you have no advice for them, and that they need to be thinking about it now so they don't end up making choices they'll regret in those frantic days after your death. The vast majority of people are grateful to know what you would want for yourself. Most of us want to treat our loved ones' remains in ways that honor how that loved one lived and what they wanted for their body in death. Which brings me to...
- Identity. As a nonbinary Pagan, the thought of having no say over what happens to my body after I die is chilling. If my spouse is in charge of my disposition, no worries. If they're unavailable for some reason and it falls to my mom, I will be given a Presbyterian funeral where I will be misgendered and deadnamed throughout. I will be embalmed and buried in a metal coffin, in a vault, possibly in another state. Yeah, I'll be dead and won't know or care what's happening to my remains. But research has started to show that death rituals that erase aspects a person's lived identity, especially aspects that aren't valued by mainstream society, harms people who share that identity. If Mom needs to grieve in a way that erases my religious and gender identities, she can do that on her own time. But it shouldn't be the main funeral my trans and Pagan beloveds have to sit through, and it shouldn't be allowed to carry into other public remembrances of me (obituary, etc.) and certainly not into my disposition. There's a world of difference between "I won't make my husband fulfil my wishes for body donation, because he's squeamish" (although, for realsies, it's not like he would have to dissect her corpse himself) and "we should leave all disposition decisions up to the survivors and that never ends poorly." The fact that Roach seems to neither see nor care about that distinction soured the end of the book for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cannibalism, Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Animal death, Car accident, and Medical content
Moderate: Gun violence, Blood, Excrement, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Murder, Death of parent, Abortion, Suicide attempt, War, and Suicide
Minor: Ableism, Fire/Fire injury, and Police brutality
plane crash, saneismvale_reading's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Violence, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Cannibalism, Murder, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Death
Moderate: Xenophobia and War
Minor: Suicide and Death of parent
jonie_rich's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.75
I really loved this book, but I had to skip over the parts about the dog surgery (that is putting it sooooooo mildly). I recommend it, and I think it educates a very overlooked part of our lives as humans.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Cannibalism, Child death, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Child abuse, Suicide, Medical content, Body horror, Blood, Gore, Animal death, Murder, Medical trauma, Torture, Car accident, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, and Excrement
stephanieridiculous's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Overall this was a fascinating read and I'm glad I picked it up. Aside from making me queasy a few times, there were a few parts I didn't particularly care for such as essentially making a joke out of the harmful stereotype about China and dogs, and with describing early colonial settlers. A few jokes absolutely failed to land as well, but I suppose humor is very subjective.
My biggest gripe with this book, though, is the chapter on crucifixion experiments. While all the other chapters have lengthy bibliographies and reference a plethora of resources, this chapter is woefully insufficient. It seems like Roach phoned this one in for the shock factor of it's inclusion and failed to give it the same level of respect and research her other topics received. And adjacent to that, the chapter I was most hesitant to read, about cannibalism, was mostly unsubstantiated rumors turned into more shock factor fluff, seemingly just to get you to read/be grossed out/I dunno what.
Despite all that, I learned a lot and have much to consider about my own future cadaver and what should be done with it.
My biggest gripe with this book, though, is the chapter on crucifixion experiments. While all the other chapters have lengthy bibliographies and reference a plethora of resources, this chapter is woefully insufficient. It seems like Roach phoned this one in for the shock factor of it's inclusion and failed to give it the same level of respect and research her other topics received. And adjacent to that, the chapter I was most hesitant to read, about cannibalism, was mostly unsubstantiated rumors turned into more shock factor fluff, seemingly just to get you to read/be grossed out/I dunno what.
Despite all that, I learned a lot and have much to consider about my own future cadaver and what should be done with it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Death, Violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicide
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