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eggboybee's review
5.0
Stiff was shockingly funny and beautifully written. Mary Roach was incredibly detailed and sensitive to her difficult subject matter, while staying engaging and down-to-earth. I imagine that I'll be returning to this book often.
Graphic: Medical content, Animal death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Gore
scollazo's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Gore, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
earlgreysnail's review
3.5
Graphic: Cannibalism, Gore, Physical abuse, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Medical content, Death, Car accident, and Blood
caitlinpfry's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Animal death, Child death, Death, Murder, Medical trauma, and Medical content
lanid's review
4.25
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Animal death, Cannibalism, Animal cruelty, and Excrement
foxmulders's review
3.75
Graphic: Medical content, Death, Gore, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
kapiolani's review
1.5
Graphic: Physical abuse, Murder, Medical trauma, Medical content, Death, and Animal death
flyawaybooks's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, and Animal death
tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
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.
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, saneismbambiann's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Abortion, Animal death, Death, and Animal cruelty