Mortician Diaries: The Dead-Honest Truth from a Life Spent with Death

It's just an okay book. I was hoping it would be more like https://www.amazon.com/Does-This-Mean-Youll-Naked/dp/1402250835/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1402250835&pd_rd_r=GA8NGXXCY7RYHX95N041&pd_rd_w=OKPQg&pd_rd_wg=Byswx&psc=1&refRID=GA8NGXXCY7RYHX95N041 or https://www.amazon.com/Mortuary-Confidential-Undertakers-Spill-Dirt/dp/0806531797/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0806531797&pd_rd_r=GA8NGXXCY7RYHX95N041&pd_rd_w=OKPQg&pd_rd_wg=Byswx&psc=1&refRID=GA8NGXXCY7RYHX95N041 . This just isn't the same type of book.I have to agree with the other reviews, it just gives her insights and kind of insinuates what a nice person she is.It was a quick read.

Loved this book. As a retired Funeral Director she wrote some of her memories of families that she served. I expected something gory from the prep room but it wasn't. Just great reading about dealing with death. Everyone should read this book and share it with family and friends.

I'm not sure what I was expecting... perhaps some interesting information on her preparation and restoration of bodies?! That's not at all what this book is about. It's more about the living than the dead, and her thoughts on how those left living are affected by the death of their loved ones. It's a good read from that perspective. Nothing in the book shocked or horrified me, I just felt sadness for some of the deaths mentioned - especially the story of the little girl in the family of all boys. It is a quick read, as other's have said. I read it start to finish in one evening.

It's difficult to criticize a book like this because it's a memoir, but I was expecting more. The cover is what drew me to the book because it led me to believe that the author would saturate her memories with personality. I found that this wasn't the case. I feel that it lacked depth and personality. I would have liked to have learned why she decided to become a mortician and I probably would have been more interested in her life (which she gives the reader a glimpse of) than the people and families that stood out during her career. I found it hard to connect with her on an emotional level because she didn't really offer much in that department.But it seems like her goal in writing this book was to hopefully educate people about the need to talk about death and sort out their final wishes before they die so as not to leave it all to their loved ones when they're least capable of dealing with such issues. I really hope she has succeeded in this goal.If reading memoirs along this line is what you're interested in, I highly recommend Amber Lenore Winckler's  The Final Bath  (which I've read and enjoyed) and its sequel,  Into the Hands of Strangers  (which I plan on reading soon). She definitely lets her personality shine through and I felt it was easier to connect with her and her characters. She really gives the reader a good view of what it's like to be in what June Knights Nadle lovingly referred to as the "death care industry."

I don't know exactly what I was expecting from Ms. Nadle's memoirs about her decades in the funeral business, but I was charmed to find her a tender yet strong, sensible, and introspective woman who - rather than be made cynical by her daily dances with death or seeing human tragedy (like the death of young people or babies) constantly - used her experiences to make her a more compassionate, life-affirming person. I finished this book wanting to meet June Nadle and have her over for tea. She is just an intelligent, endearing woman that you feel privileged to have met as you turn the last page of her memoir.She has written about what some would consider an - at best, undesirable, and to most, a disturbing - job in a beautiful, uplifting way. There is little that is dismal in this book. Even when hearing June retell the most tragic stories, she always finds and shares a silver lining or muses that, at the very least, we must remember never to take life for granted; indeed, she reminds us that life is a beautiful, precious, fleeting thing.In this way, June Nadle's treatise on working as an undertaker was, surprisingly, much more an affirmation of life than a narrative on death.

I really enjoy this book. I was hoping it was not going to be sad but it really deals with the aspects of what happens after someone has passed away and how everyone handles it in different ways. The writer did an excellent job. Not to big. So you could finish it in a day or two unless a story bothers you you can move onto the next one.

It is very interesting and very informative, good read !

the stories June has collected and shared in her memoir are unforgettable and show many sides to "death". A great read.

Book was quiet dear and not that intresting pretty bog standard book of its type. Read it but deleted it now

Right up my alley.