Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I found this book to be a refreshing, unsentimental and honest look at the way Americans deal with death - which is to say, not very effectively. Author Doughty spent time working in a crematory and later went through mortuary school, and her memoir is by turns darkly funny, fascinating, disgusting, and touching. I have a lot of admiration for anyone who works in a crematory, does embalming, or deals with mourning relatives - it's very challenging work and I couldn't do it. In addition to her own story, Doughty skillfully weaves in a history of embalming, American funeral traditions, other cultures' funeral rites and beliefs about death, and how the mortuary industry works, and it's all quite interesting, if sometimes a little difficult to read. If you're squeamish, it might be best to steer clear, as Doughty spares no description in her quest to open the reader's eyes to what really happens to our bodies after we die and how we can best understand and deal with death more honestly and directly than we currently do. I don't know if I should say I "enjoyed" this book the way I would enjoy a novel, but I certainly appreciated it, especially since I have gone through the deaths of family members and am getting on in years myself, and I feel it's important to explore and be able to talk about our own ends openly, rather than tiptoeing around the subject. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the mortuary/funeral industry, medical students (doctors in this country don't deal with death very well), and anyone who, like me, wants to understand more about death and how to plan for it.