Title: Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead BodiesAuthor: Caitlin Doughty
Narrator: Caitlin Doughty
First Published: September 10, 2019
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Pages: 240
Genre: History, Humor, Non-Fiction, Science
Format: Audiobook
Source: Library
Rating:
Synopsis:
Best-selling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers real questions from kids about death, dead bodies, and decomposition.
Every day, funeral director Caitlin Doughty receives dozens of questions about death. The best questions come from kids. What would happen to an astronaut’s body if it were pushed out of a space shuttle? Do people poop when they die? Can Grandma have a Viking funeral?
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.
Get the Book: AmazonReview
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs is a delightful little book for children and young adults that answers some big questions about death. Mortician and YouTuber Caitlin Doughty selects questions that she’s been asked over time by kids. The questions were direct, and some of them very silly, and address common sayings about death. Doughty does a wonderful job answering with her usual charming humor, her explanations were informative and easy to understand.
If you’ve read any of Caitlin Doughty’s other books some familiar ground is tread here, and it’s a good book to leap to if your favorite part of her books was the science. I listened to this book on audio which Doughty narrates herself and it made for some fun car rides.
Quote
“He won’t be diving straight for the human flesh. But a cat has got to eat, and you are the person who feeds him. This is the cat-human compact. Death doesn’t free you from performing your contractual obligations.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Caitlin Doughty
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician and the author of Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? as well as the New York Times best-selling books Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity. She is the creator of the “Ask a Mortician” web series and founder of The Order of the Good Death. She lives in Los Angeles, where she owns and runs a funeral home.
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