Review: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I may now be regretting asking FaceBook friends for book suggestions. When I started Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers I hated the book by about page 40. The subject matter does not bother me, but the writing style terrible and the author is so flippant it is really annoying me. Think about that for a second, I am a who considers flippant to be a positive lifestyle choice and I am finding it annoying.

The writing style of this book reminds me of another book I read several years ago, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress by Shelly Mazzanoble, which did not particularly amuse me either. The book is written like a human interest story in Cosmopolitan magazine, which is fine for Cosmo, but is not fine for a lengthy book on a macabre subject. I get it, she was trying to add some humor and brevity to a serious subject, the problem is, she was not particularly funny and this was magnified by the grim subject matter. Don't get me wrong here, I do not object to being flippant about sensitive subjects, not at all, but rather, I did not care for her style of writing or sense of humor.

Unfortunately, the sorority girl humor detracted from what I would have otherwise considered a fairly interesting subject matter. I have seen some documentaries on the discussion of how cadavers have been used throughout history, in both ethical and unethical ways, for the betterment of humanity and the not so much, which I have found fascinating and informative. This book did provide some of that, but not enough to convince me it was worth reading.



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