A review by twistingsnake
All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This book is an unexpected mix of information and personalized, heartfelt memoir. Campbell begins as an impartial, journalistic voyeur who places herself in the back of the room to observe and document for the sake of information. Each chapter becomes a little more personal, a little more human as she engages with the human beings responsible for our dead. The stand-out chapter comes near the end of the book where she comes face to face with a body she cannot, and likely will never, forget. This is a book about death, it's about the people who encounter death daily, who see the things that the world does not. It's also about Hayley Campbell in a way that makes the book much better for it. I cried several times reading it, I also laughed. It's not a horrifying book, and it is not a sad one - it's a window to a world that we're all heading toward whether we want to be or not. It makes you want to look through the foggy glass, even if you're afraid of what's on the other side.