(Yes, I realize I’m about 10 years delayed in reading Stiff).
Unfortunately, Stiff didn’t quite rise to my expectations. Mostly because I was expecting a different book. I thought it was a detailed description of the decomposition of a single cadaver, possibly with chapters organized by time (Chapter 1: 30m After Death, Chapter 2: 24 Hours After Death, etc.). Still think it this would be a really cool book, but alas, it wasn’t this one.
With adjusted expectations I immediately started creating new expectations, but managed to really-really enjoy the first two thirds of the book. It was fascinating to learn more about the cadaver trade during Victorian times and the body farms that help students learn more about body decomposition. But Roach started to lose me on the long chapter about crash-test dummies and I was *this close* to skipping during the trip to China.
Basically, I wish she’d have spent more time on the history of humanity’s treatment of dead people (so much to cover, so many cultures, two world wars!) and less on contemporary cadaver-disposal options. I’m know this is all about what I wanted Roach to write, but there you have it, can’t be helped.
I was surprised by my lack of squeamishness. Actually, the parts that were harder to listen to (audiobook) were about the living, like the victims patients of early surgeries and placenta-eating moms.
So, in summary, fascinating stuff, and Roach has my respect for tackling an almost taboo topic, but ended up with mixed feelings due to strong opinions about what she should have written. #entitlement
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Other thoughts: Rebecca Reads, Fyrefly’s Book Blog, Confessions of a Bibliophile, You’ve GOTTA read this, The Book Brothel, Savidge Reads, Bookshelves of Doom, Love, Laughter and a touch of Insanity, The Cheap Reader, Sophisticated Dorkiness, Lakeside Musing, Capricious Reader, She Treads Softly, an adventure in reading, reading comes from writing, Peace of Brain, Reading Through Life, eclectic/eccentric (yours?)
9 comments
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February 10, 2015 at 3:37 pm
crackabook
This has been on my to-read list for awhile and now I am not too excited to pick it up. It sounds like you would really enjoy the new HBO show The Knick with Clive Owen. He’s a surgeon at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York in 1800. They show a lot about the cadaver trade back then and there use in medical discovers that shaped the world today.
February 10, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Kailana
I wish the narrator narrated her other books. I really liked her.
February 10, 2015 at 4:59 pm
nrlymrtl
It’s been years since I read this one. I should pick it up again. I didn’t go into it with any expectations and recall really enjoying it. I think I was most surprised to learn that when you donate your body to science, you don’t really get to say how it will be used – so your head could end up in a plastic surgery training class while your bones are used to grow psychedelic mushrooms (or some such thing).
February 10, 2015 at 6:53 pm
Ti
We had a county coroner in our book club for all of one meeting and the stories she told! Wow, Made me want to read this book then, but I never got around to it.
February 10, 2015 at 8:54 pm
Care
I started this one while subbing for the HS librarian but didn’t take it home with me and never got back to it. I was not enamored with Roach’s space book and now I wonder if I will like her books. I really should give her a try again.
February 12, 2015 at 4:27 am
Trisha
Isn’t it amazing how much expectations can affect reading? I just had this problem with – oddly enough – Doughty’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, another death and dying and cadavers focused book.
February 15, 2015 at 2:49 pm
Athira
Hmm, I had the same idea about the book as you did, so I guess I better read the description again. This one has been on my list for a long time too, but haven’t yet got to it. I guess it would be a good one to listen to!
September 25, 2015 at 3:59 pm
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