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klbreyfogle's review
4.0
Graphic: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Medical content, Animal death, Grief, Gore, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Excrement, Abortion, and Terminal illness
wandering_canuck's review
3.5
Graphic: Death of parent, Gore, Car accident, Child death, Medical trauma, Blood, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Abortion, and Death
wickedgrumpy's review against another edition
3.5
Minor: Abortion, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Death of parent, Excrement, Fatphobia, Medical content, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Trafficking, Violence, Cultural appropriation, Body horror, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Torture, and Confinement
weebit's review
4.75
Minor: Death, Cannibalism, Gore, Medical content, Blood, Murder, Abortion, and Animal cruelty
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
kearydeary's review
2.0
Graphic: Violence, Racism, Body horror, Blood, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, Medical content, Gore, Cannibalism, Excrement, and Abortion
jonie_rich's review against another edition
4.75
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
applesaucecreachur's review against another edition
3.0
1. Our corpses are not "us". In life, they were our vessels. Now, they are shells.
2. That said, as a future medical care provider and future surviving loved one, the remains of those departed are worthy of respect and care.
3. There's been a lot of thought and disagreement put into how we ought to treat corpses. Do we bury them? Burn them? Dissolve them? Compost? Scatter? Stick in an anatomy lab? Put on display? Pulverize in controlled car crash scenarios? Eat????
4. While sometimes self-aware, this book was a bit orientalizing and generally racist. (The bit about the Spanish American War and the indigenous soldiers? Come on now.)
This book was moderately informative and mildly entertaining. Now I gotta go figure out what to do with my husk when I'm done with it.
Graphic: Death, Animal death, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Racism, Ableism, and Gun violence
Minor: Abortion
rachleigh251's review
5.0
Graphic: Medical content, Death, and Car accident
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Abortion