This book is all about the dividing line between life and death and what happens to the body after that line is crossed.

Both from a historical perspective as well as what goes on today, the author shares her journey to learn what we have and continue to do as societies with our dead.

From anatomy labs in medical schools and organ donation to car crash simulations and the body farms where we learn how better to estimate time of death in crimes, we see the useful ends our bodies can enable. We also learn about many less than savory things that people have done and are rumored to do today with the bodies of the dead.

Along the way, the ethics and the author's own personal take are a lens through which all of this information is viewed.

It's that author's perspective that probably offers the one thing likely to bother other readers. I mean, if you're interested in reading this in the first place, you're unlikely to be bothered by descriptions of how mummies, embalmed in honey for 100 years were used for medicinal purposes.

Other reviewers indicate that the author's humor and sarcasm, etc. might get in the way for some readers. However, I think that those bits are an important part of the story here. Much like many of the people she interviews, dealing with the dead requires some sort of coping mechanism. The sarcastic asides strike me as that coping mechanism for the author.

All-in-all a worthwhile read.