Book Rec: Stiff
Jul. 7th, 2009 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annundrielEveryone else is at the Mariners game. I opted for a quiet evening on my own.
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olivelavonne loaned me Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach recently and I'm going to take this opportunity to recommend it. It's about what happens to our bodies when we leave them and it's absolutely fascinating. So far the author has covered areas from anatomy labs in medical schools to forensic departments to crash testing and injury analysis.
The only part that's made me slightly uncomfortable so far was the description of the stages of decomposition (and how that can be used to identify when and where a person was murdered). But even that wasn't too bad.
I also finished a Young Adult book by Robert Liparulo called House of Dark Shadows. Picked it up when it came in with the new books at the library. Wasn't overly impressed. I found the writing to be competent but not particularly catching. There were several instances where he used "the boy" to refer to the main character's brother and we know how much that drives me crazy.
There were also a lot of pop culture references, which is fine. It just...felt a little lazy after a while. Like reverting to a pop culture comparison because that's where the author was pulling from and couldn't come up with his own thing.
I also felt like it was trying to be Supernatural for a younger set. The comparison was even made within the book itself. Mothers going missing, brothers working together to solve mysteries, fathers with secrets. It was a fine read, just disappointingly average.
olivelavonne loaned me Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach recently and I'm going to take this opportunity to recommend it. It's about what happens to our bodies when we leave them and it's absolutely fascinating. So far the author has covered areas from anatomy labs in medical schools to forensic departments to crash testing and injury analysis.The only part that's made me slightly uncomfortable so far was the description of the stages of decomposition (and how that can be used to identify when and where a person was murdered). But even that wasn't too bad.
I also finished a Young Adult book by Robert Liparulo called House of Dark Shadows. Picked it up when it came in with the new books at the library. Wasn't overly impressed. I found the writing to be competent but not particularly catching. There were several instances where he used "the boy" to refer to the main character's brother and we know how much that drives me crazy.
There were also a lot of pop culture references, which is fine. It just...felt a little lazy after a while. Like reverting to a pop culture comparison because that's where the author was pulling from and couldn't come up with his own thing.
I also felt like it was trying to be Supernatural for a younger set. The comparison was even made within the book itself. Mothers going missing, brothers working together to solve mysteries, fathers with secrets. It was a fine read, just disappointingly average.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-08 03:31 am (UTC)Check out Sarah Palin's resignation letter on her website: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/exec-column.php
I mostly enjoy the random capitalization and quotations. You can almost hear the terrible Palin drawl as you read it. ACK.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-13 11:15 pm (UTC)I skimmed a lot of it because, yeah, I wanted to edit a lot.
Thanks for sharing. And you could totally hear her drawl.