Title: Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? : Big Questions fromTiny Mortals About Death
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company 2019
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 240
Rating: 4/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Library
In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to thirty-five distinctive questions posed by her youngest fans. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details lore and science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn colors during decomposition? And why do hair and nails appear longer after death? Readers will learn the best soil for mummifying your body, whether you can preserve your best friend’s skull as a keepsake, and what happens when you die on a plane.
Beautifully illustrated by Dianné Ruz, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? shows us that death is science and art, and only by asking questions can we begin to embrace it.
Another book by Caitlin Doughty! I loved Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and have watched many of her videos and interviews. This book was a collection of questions and answers related to death. Some of the topics were repeats from information presented in her previous book. Some were repeats from interviews she has done. But they were all enjoyable to read and remind myself that Viking funerals are Hollywood creations and illegal and that we routinely wrap bodies in saran wrap to prevent leakage during funerals. Good little collection for an afternoon’s reading.
Next up on the TBR pile: