Book Review for Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer

I received this book for free. This does not impact my review in any shape or form.

Welcome to Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration is a short story collection that explores the gruesome ways our body parts fuel our paranoia. The collection is separated into 4 sections. The Head details all the horrifically delightful ways we can destroy our minds physically or mentally. The Limbs delve into the importance of our arms and legs, especially legs. The Middle denotes the organs in the abdomen and the correlation between the abdomen and the horrors of motherhood, and The Rest showcases other terrors the body has to offer. 

When I was in medical school, we had an anatomy lab where we would dissect dead bodies. When my classmates and I got there, we were greeted with the sight of corpses stacked on top of examination tables. Some were old, others young, some men, others women; all were preserved for our learning convenience. They reeked of iodine. Their eyes were closed, and their limbs were limp. The professor handed us a scalpel and told us to start cutting. He also gave us a chart to identify different organs we’d carefully cut (tear) into. After that, I swore off meat for about a week.

This collection reminds me of that. Whether it be because I had to cut into someone’s brain or because I’m a counselor, my favorite section was The Head. I loved the image of squirming maggots tunneling their way into a woman’s brain, however strange that sounds, or someone having to kill other people just because they’re overstimulated. And of course, this morbid fascination with psychology also includes The Limbs, where you hallucinate parasites munching on your leg, or the leg of your dead daughter actually being your daughter. 

But what got my attention was a story in The Middle called Wandering But Not Lost. The short story was about a man, Dr. John Wurth, who wants everything on his timeline. It doesn’t matter if his wife was uncomfortable with the idea of children right now or that he had debts to pay; he’d rather put her through undue misery than expose his ego to any more “abuse.” So when he takes matters into his own hands, he’s horrified. The consequences of my own actions? Did not see that coming. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. I would show any potential colleague this book and ask them to identify any symptoms of psychosis, which organs correspond with which place, and what they would do if their uterus suddenly went missing. As such, I would give this book a 5 out of 5 stars. 

You can buy the book here!