Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Several independent reviewers say it “reads like an extended magazine article” rather than a book, and name Roach's magazine background as why. Her self-deprecating asides become a tic by the back half, where a fact about a body gets undercut when she will “throw in a comment about her stinky socks.” One detailed critique flags factual carelessness, objecting that “a whole chapter on the science of decomposition? Reeks of laziness.” The chapter chasing a tabloid cannibalism story in a small Chinese town is called condescending and tangential. And a vocal camp objects to the voice itself: “she's judgmental and annoying,” “one of the WORST writers I have ever read.”