Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions From Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty

I am properly obsessed with Caitlin Doughty. I read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in 2016 as a book club pick (I briefly organized a book club with some of my friends), and it was a complete game-changer. I watch her youtube channel (Ask a Mortician), have read all three of her books, have seen basically every talk and interview she has ever given. Obsessed.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions From Tiny Mortals About Death is an excellent introduction to the world of Caitlin Doughty. It is fun, informative, and respectful; I am pretty confident that if I were not super obsessed with her, I would have given this five stars (more on this in a moment).

Doughty addresses being eaten by pets post-death, Viking funerals, pet burial practices, what would happen if you died in space, and many many more topics. I found myself laughing often; she has an incredibly engaging writing style and learned tons! My conversational fun-facts have really benefitted by my Caitlin Doughty content consumption.

It might be slightly unfair to give this book four stars because I think the 1 star I knocked off was because I did know the basic answers to many of these questions due to consuming her content so intensely for such a long time. I learned tons of new things, but some parts dragged because I knew the answers.

I think this is an excellent gift-book! Probably anyone over ten would find this book fascinating (I would maybe check with parents for under 10's, mostly for parent reaction and reading level than for content). If you want a more personal overview of the death industry, start with Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory, and if you want more of an insider death ritual focused travel log read From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. And watch her Ask a Mortician videos because I told you too.

I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads and it is my first finished book of 2020!