Rating:
3.5 stars

In a nutshell:
Obituary writer Bud accidentally publishes his own obituary, and subsequently ‘loses’ his job, while trying to figure out what his life means.

Best for:
Those who want a bit of humor with their existential dread. Those looking for a quick but interesting read.

Quote that made me think:
“The thing is, though, when you listen too carefully, too closely, day after day, to that pain, to that keening, it can take a toll. Because to really listen is to feel it, isn’t it?”

“What would you write if you had to write your obituary? Today, right now. What comes to mind? What memories, days, moments? What people and experiences? I realize, at first glance, that the idea of writing one’s own obituary while still alive may sound morbid. It’s not, though. I promise you. It’s a needed reminder of who you are, of what truly matters. Because it’s your life and there’s still time to write it. Before I have to.”

Why I chose it:
It was recommended on the audio book app I use (Libro.FM – great alternative to Audible).

Review:
Bud is a 44 year old man who lives in Brooklyn, in the apartment above his friend Tim’s home. He works for an AP-type news agency, writing obituaries. He’s not the best at it, but he’s fine. One day he gets an email from his ex wife, and ends up writing his own obituary, a bit as a lark. But events transpire that lead to him accidentally publishing the obituary.

The book isn’t about the world thinking Bud is dead – everyone realizes immediately that it’s an error, or weird joke, or something of that nature. His work suspends him pending an investigation, so Bud is faced with living in a bit of a limbo, more so than he already was. At his ex wife’s mom’s funeral, he meets Clara, a woman who goes to funerals of people she doesn’t know. Tim and Bud start attending a few of these, and Bud begins to explore what his life means to him now.

This book could have been trite – Bud could have had a giant change, everything getting resolved perfectly, with lots of deep, meaningful quotes. But that’s not how it works. Bud is funny. He’s sarcastic and self deprecating and makes absurd decisions sometimes. At the end of the book, he’s gone on a journey, but he hasn’t changed everything about who he is. Everything hasn’t worked itself out, but some things do get better. I appreciate that, because it feels like the way things work for real people outside of books,

Part of why this book interested me is that this summer my sister and I wrote my dad’s obituary. It was a process – I wrote a version, she wrote a version, she merged it together, then my mother tried to veto half of it. It was also healing, writing out some of the best things we could remember about my dad, including the things he loved to do. And it lives on as not a biography or a summary of his life, but a bit of a highlight reel, a cliff’s notes version of his 81 years.

The main reason this is 3.5 and not 4 stars is a ridiculous bit where an HR colleague was being quite kind and thoughtful with respect to pronounces and disability. Bud – and another character, Howard – mocks the man. The reader is supposed to relate and think negatively about how unnecessarily ‘woke’ society has become. The thing is, the scene takes up maybe three pages of the book? We already know that Bud is not 100% awesome, so it’s not like the scene was necessary at all, so it makes me think the author feels this way himself and wanted to fit that little dig in. It was, to my mind, wildly out of place and actually out of character for Bud. Weird choice.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes