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A review by theeuphoriczat
Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
4.0
I really loved reading this book. I thought it was a great study on death, grief and the power of invisibility & insignificance.
We follow Mrs Death who is a simple older Black woman who is usually overlooked and not attributed to anything of significance. Her job is exhausting and people obvious lack of appreciation for all she does to maintain balance has exhausted her and she needs someone to unburden her conscience to.
This is how we meet Wolf who is a struggling aspiring writer who believes that a new desk will solve all their problems (as Wolf Willeford was not gendered, I will use she/her identifies in this review). When Wolf was a child, she had faced death (had seen Mrs Death) when the building she and her mother caught on fire due to shitty construction and lack of proper fire maintenance structures. So upon seeing and interacting with Mrs Death, Wolf begins by questioning and getting to know the parameters of death and if Mrs Death have ever missed death.
I thought this book was a great study on time, how position has humans in time, the functionality and importance of death not just for population control but for purpose. Most people thrive to leave a make in time because of death. If we were to live forever without worrying about dying or death, no one will do anything, no one will thrive for anything.
I loved the way invisibility was used as a cloak for death and the characterization of Death as a middle age Black woman just further highlights the current gap in equality. They unseen, the silenced, the abandoned, the unthought-of, we don't think or appreciate death until it is staring us in the face.
This quote just fully encapsulate the importance of death.
Death. To imagine your own death is to be living. To be friends, to be friendly with knowledge, the knowing that death will come. This should make you try harder to be living, to be fully alive and lively. Surely you know you are all dying? You know - you all know - that you're going to die. This should make you all want to be good, to be better.
We follow Mrs Death who is a simple older Black woman who is usually overlooked and not attributed to anything of significance. Her job is exhausting and people obvious lack of appreciation for all she does to maintain balance has exhausted her and she needs someone to unburden her conscience to.
This is how we meet Wolf who is a struggling aspiring writer who believes that a new desk will solve all their problems (as Wolf Willeford was not gendered, I will use she/her identifies in this review). When Wolf was a child, she had faced death (had seen Mrs Death) when the building she and her mother caught on fire due to shitty construction and lack of proper fire maintenance structures. So upon seeing and interacting with Mrs Death, Wolf begins by questioning and getting to know the parameters of death and if Mrs Death have ever missed death.
I thought this book was a great study on time, how position has humans in time, the functionality and importance of death not just for population control but for purpose. Most people thrive to leave a make in time because of death. If we were to live forever without worrying about dying or death, no one will do anything, no one will thrive for anything.
I loved the way invisibility was used as a cloak for death and the characterization of Death as a middle age Black woman just further highlights the current gap in equality. They unseen, the silenced, the abandoned, the unthought-of, we don't think or appreciate death until it is staring us in the face.
This quote just fully encapsulate the importance of death.
Death. To imagine your own death is to be living. To be friends, to be friendly with knowledge, the knowing that death will come. This should make you try harder to be living, to be fully alive and lively. Surely you know you are all dying? You know - you all know - that you're going to die. This should make you all want to be good, to be better.