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A review by macfiar
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood
3.0
What I liked about this book (on Audible): The narrator (Arden Hammersmith) was very good. The book also looks at the issue from all viewpoints, the people who fake death; those who get caught; the people left behind; and the people who help the fraudsters. It was an interesting look at a subject I had never heard of before.
What I didn't like about this book: The author is a little too naive. She finds the whole idea of faking your own death romantic and actually begins the book by contemplating faking her dead to get out of student debt, because she owes in the 6 figures. I am a former law student. I don't know anyone who doesn't have the kind of debt. You learn to live with it and get on with your life. Throughout the story she seems both surprised and disappointed that her original romantic ideas of death fraud were too childish and fantastic to be what she thought, like meeting her childhood hero and finding he couldn't fly in real life. The book is also more about her growing up finally (at 31 years old), and realizing regular life is good enough, than death fraud. There is way too much of the author in the narrative for my taste.
What I didn't like about this book: The author is a little too naive. She finds the whole idea of faking your own death romantic and actually begins the book by contemplating faking her dead to get out of student debt, because she owes in the 6 figures. I am a former law student. I don't know anyone who doesn't have the kind of debt. You learn to live with it and get on with your life. Throughout the story she seems both surprised and disappointed that her original romantic ideas of death fraud were too childish and fantastic to be what she thought, like meeting her childhood hero and finding he couldn't fly in real life. The book is also more about her growing up finally (at 31 years old), and realizing regular life is good enough, than death fraud. There is way too much of the author in the narrative for my taste.