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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92559.Being_Dead_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Being Dead: A Novel" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171249182m/92559.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92559.Being_Dead_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Being Dead: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13843.Jim_Crace">Jim Crace</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10528420?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>There's no question that this is a beautifully written book, and I liked it a lot for that quality. I appreciated the lyrical and clearly well-informed descriptions of Joseph and Celice's decomposition (some forensic research must have gone into this book!), and the structure of the narrative worked for me. Yet I was eager to, er, wash my hands of it toward the end. The fatal flaw? I was never convinced of much love between the two dead marrieds, never shown much of anything that would help me feel for them, for the loss of their life together. The LATBR reviewer's quote on the cover of my edition claims that Being Dead is "an exquisitely gentle and unsentimental tale on the evolution of love," and I'm with him until the "on the evolution of love" part. I'd like to see evidence supporting the argument that much love between the two was ever illustrated here. In particular, Celice struck me as disatissfied with her mate from the very start. If there was ever a honeymoon period, the reader is not privy to it. Instead, we hear how she is initially disdainful of Joseph, and many years later, finds most everything about him irritating, and her marriage, disappointing. Where's the love? For this book to really work, for me to be tugged into grief and quiet contemplation of the meaning of a shared life as I read about a couple's bodies decomposing, I needed more of it. Too much sentiment and yes, the book would be a disaster. But I maintain that Crace erred on the cool side. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/680272?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>