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The Death Class: A True Story About Life (2014)

by Erika Hayasaki(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1451642857 (ISBN13: 9781451642858)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: A whole class on death is a great concept. However, Hayaski spent too much time on the students who had the worst possible life experiences. The teacher was a larger-than-life do gooder who would drop everything to help both her students and apparently anyone who needed her help. Dr. Bowe took her classes to visit cemetaries, a homeless shelter, a hospice, a morgue and a prison. (One student was afraid he'd run into someone there that had been in a rival gang.) I wish there had been examples shared of the students work as the assignments were challenging and creative. The author attended the class as both a participant and a writer.
review 2: The book begins with explaining what kind of people would take a college course on death. The study found that the ... morepeople who gravitated towards that content were people who had lost a loved one, thought about committing suicide, or made an attempt to end his/her life. The people who pick up this book fit the same criteria. The Death Class is an incredible nonfiction/journalistic piece detailing the life of Dr. Norma Bowe and her incredible perspective on death, exhibited through her class Death in Perspective at Kean University in New Jersey. Interspersed through the book were the narratives of some of the students in her class that were truly heartbreaking, encouraging, and shockingly real. Each person was relatable in his/her own way. The fear of death keeps human beings from excepting that death is a natural part of life. The book touched upon suicide, homicide/mass violence, hospice care, gang violence, drug abuse, homelessness, mental illness, the biological process of dying/funerals/cremations, and the aftermath of grief. I highly recommend it. less

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