Just in time for Halloween, this book writes this author’s colorful life beginning as an intrepid goth girl in Michigan and culminating in the singed smoke-grey California wildfires and COVID-19 of today.

This collection of essays is not an objective Mary Roach-style humorous portraying the science of the icky and macabre. Nor is it filled with the spooky, spiritual, and subjective frights from the other end of the spectrum. It does, however, contain elements of each but with much more subtlety and with less of the self-satisfied certainty of easy categorization. I myself am not particularly a fan of the macabre, especially the “woo woo” type, but I did want to challenge the boundaries of my comfort levels, and NetGalley obliged my request with this book. In return, here’s my review!

The very first stories—teenage photo ops in cemeteries, pierced genitalia—were rough for me to get through. They seemed just an ill thought out attempt for wild kicks and sensations. In fact, i need to call them stories, vignettes, or memoirettes instead of essays, because my engagement grew as I began to understand her heart more than her mind. The essays became more and more gripping and I wasn’t able to stop until I had finished the very last story.

Yes, the stories were fascinating. What sets this collection apart as a five-star book is the honest examination life-changing capacity of these stories. The author presents stories with an straightforward clinical unflinching analysis and a reflection on ethics rather than exploitation or shame. Not just the physical world but also the apparitions, human spirit, spirits of humans. Adding to my enjoyment, the stories/essays are well-written, condensed, interlinked nuggets that logically proceed in a chronological fashion.

Her fascination with the taboo, morbid topics of pain, sex, blood, death, cadavers, are presented non gratuitously, and more and more thoughtful as she matures. The stories surrounding death in her family of origin that spur her to bring life into the world seem an emotional climax. As she proceeds, she shares painful, yet healing stories. About friends who died at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and the ethics of assisted suicide and the subsequent documentation, about the life and death of cadavers who donated their bodies to science, they reveal the beauty of their gifts of life, about facing fears.

I noticed that each story closed with a brief summary of lessons learned, each a wryly humorous takeaway, but you can also see what she’s learned through experiences she shares, the words she chooses, and the emotions she shares through the actions she shares. Also highly visibly is the lack of stories about her husband, whom we know is around because she tells us. This is <em>her</em> story. Care is taken in story selection, as we see two framing stories about claustrophobia that brace the inner stories and show her ability to to take on negative emotions and work with them.

Tender, delicate, vulnerable, introspective. You see her handling a cadavers heart, the electrical pump of life and realize the morbid as an expression of love. The morbid as a metaphor for love, life, and flow of energy.

She opens her heart and shows her vulnerability.

I went into this book thinking it would be as enthralling as a read by Roach, but I was not correct. The content was very interesting, but I just did not find each chapter compelling enough.

I had to DNF. I know lots of people will enjoy these essays, but I was so bored by them all. I go about 3/4 through before finally quitting. The cover art is beautiful, though.