Stiff

What happens to our bodies after we die? From how a cadaver is made, grave-robbing, to cannibalism, Mary Roach provides us with some education, and some light humor.

Mary starts with giving us a glimpse as to how a cadaver is made. It’s a bit gross, and I appreciated her humorous tone. I also really enjoyed how she narrates, mainly because she’s ‘talking’ to the reader, and recalling her in-person experience at hospitals and other places. She does her homework properly!

I never realized how difficult medical research has been due to the lack of suitable cadavers or skeletons/bones. Not to mention, how we need to give students in medical school access to cadavers and skeletons so that they have a close representative of what they will be dealing with when working with patients. So difficult, in fact, that there are sections of this book about body-snatching, grave robbing and black markets for the production and sale of cadavers.

She goes over a lot more, some really interesting threads on cannibalism, burials/funerals, and then there’s testing/experimenting with cadavers - apparently Wayne State University in Detroit and the car companies surrounding are some of the biggest researchers that use cadavers for car safety research!

Overall, this was a great book, maybe not for the squeamish. I had fun reading this, and learning about things that will probably only affect me after I’m dead - but I’m glad to know it. Enjoy!