Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?

Talk about an eye-catching book title! 

Caitlin Doughty, a funeral director and mortician by trade and the YouTuber behind Ask A Mortician, explores and answers 35 questions that small humans have posed about death. She has a great sense of humour, and her answers can be a bit gruesome, delightfully macabre and are often giggle-out-loud funny as she shares bite-sized facts about death. 

Broken up into short chapters with a question-and-answer format, Doughty explores questions that range from amusing to kinda-out-there and include: 

• What would happen to an astronaut's body in space? 
• Can everybody fit in a casket? What if they're really tall?
• Do conjoined twins always die at the same time?
• What would happen if you swallowed a bag of popcorn before you died and were cremated?
• If I died making a stupid face, would it be stuck like that forever?
• Can you describe the smell of a dead body?

and let's not forget the age-old question that's at the top of everyone's minds ...

• Do we poop when we die? (a classic, n'est pas?)

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? is a short, fun(ny) and informative book that candidly answers questions about death, corpses, and funeral home secrets. Balancing facts with a delightfully irreverent but still respectful vibe, this was a humorous read that taught me a few things and has me interested in checking out Doughty's YouTube channel. 

My Rating: 4 stars

Author: Caitlin Doughty

Genre: Nonfiction

Type and Source: Hardcover from public library

Publisher: WW Norton

First Published: September 10, 2019

Book Description from GoodReads: 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 and the intriguing history behind common misconceptions about corpses to offer factual, hilarious, and candid answers to thirty-five questions. In her inimitable voice, Doughty details the 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, 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.