A great storyteller ... That will either appeal to you or it won’t. It’s a romanticism that often goes hand-in-hand with a love of the gothic, and so if you have no patience for it, take this as a warning. Aside from those folks, this is a perfect book for almost anyone. If you feel yourself getting too hung up on whether you should enjoy a book about death, just remember: Death is an inescapable part of life, as this book proves.
Part travelogue, part memoir...part history, myth and legend. Even readers who lack her taste for the macabre will be enticed by Enriquez’s infectious enthusiasm for her subject ... Seen through Enriquez’s eyes in this highly original book, these sites are more than just monuments to the dead; they tell us how people lived in the past, as well as how they live now.
Fascinating ... She...ponders the weirdnesses related to politics...with insight, empathy, and pathos. Enriquez hides a celebration of life in a book about death that will enliven every collection.
Despite hints of deeper darkness, Enriquez’s almost protective devotion to the subject of her eerie obsession supplants juicy personal details and the rendering of moral judgments to shape an ode to material remembrance that is unusual, sometimes comical, and ultimately oddly comforting. Quietly, hypnotically amusing.
