Sheri BookerReseñas

The author really captured the feeling of being a young girl in a funeral home and giving a perspective that few of us have once our loved ones pass "from the blue into the black." The book was intriguing and kept my attention throughout.

I enjoyed this, and it was a compelling read, but it I think I wanted a different story than the one the author was telling. It's really interesting, and I loved hearing about the mortuary preparations and surrounding community, but I was a bit less interested in the more personal details of the story. My other small issue was the use of a transgendered slur. I recognize that the book is recounting a story about a different time, and so language used might be less acceptable, but the part I found problematic was that the language was incorporated not into what was said at the time, but as a descriptor. I know that I lean toward "politically correct" language, but that's because certain terms really are used as hate-speech and slurs, and I don't think it's unreasonable to replace them with more modern equivalents that aren't hurtful and loaded. If the term were used in a direct quote, fine, but since that really isn't the case - the individual is described to the reader using a slur, as though it's the same type of descriptor as the deceased's age - I wish an editor or someone had caught it and changed the language.

An intriguing if not gripping look at the funeral home business in a large inner city in the 1970s (I think). Casual descriptions of the bodies: transsexuals, dwarfs, amputees, babies along with graphic descriptions of embalming are leavened by the warmth and sympathy that the Home provides. Most disturbing is the rash of deaths at an early age from violence, neglect, and poor health. Most encouraging is seeing Ms Booker evolve into an accomplished, self-possessed person capable of handling all manner of people and situations. An occasional f-bomb and one (nongraphic) sexual scene, otherwise nothing objectionable and plenty for gory-hounds to love.

In my 36 years on this earth I have had the role of a death sitter three times. I have seen the light that shines in the eyes fade, as the soul transitions to another level. I have waited for the funeral home to come retrieve my loved one’s body and watched as they placed him or her in the body bag. To some it might seem morbid, but I could not leave until the very end. Although I have seen the steps of death, I have been slightly curious about what happens afterwards. I remember how impressed I was when both my grandmother and grandfather looked good. In fact, they were almost unrecognizable after the makeup, embalming, and wigs were applied. I was amazed how the mortician was able to take away the kiss of death, to the point where it looked like they were sleeping in the caskets. This book is about the inner works of a funeral home and one young woman’s experience there. It tells the story of her nine year life lesson, on how a funeral home became a jump start at creating the person she is today.

I absolutely enjoyed this book. I loved how the author brought the reader from her first experience as a young fifteen year old girl to a grown woman nine years later. I found the details about the inner workings of the funeral home and its characters to be enjoyable. I was impressed how the author was honest with the location and culture of the funeral. Not everyone has a great deal of money, but most do the best they can. I was told by my grandmother for many years that death is the great equalizer and this book demonstrates this concept through and through. There were no stereotypes, prejudices, ignorance, or blame games of equality. There was only the honest truth about death and its lack of eyes. Death tends to be blind to people and it only senses its victims. This book has a lot to offer and I was very impressed. It answered many of my questions about what takes place in a funeral home when no one is around. I am not one to watch television, so this book gave me answers on a more personable level. I have to recommend this book hands down and must thank both goodreads and the author for sending me this book for review in a giveaway. I appreciate it and am happy that I won!

This is a first person account told by the author of her nine years working in a funeral home in Baltimore. She starts working for the Wylie funeral home as a fifteen year old because she knows the family from her church. The story could be more interesting if it was better written, if the people were more fully described or if the narrative was more compelling. I just didn't feel very attached to anyone in the book and thought that there would be some really interesting insights into the industry or to particular dead people. Not so. Too bad.½

I liked this a lot. Sheri Booker is a good storyteller. It is fascinating and touching work that she did during these nine years. I'm glad that she has moved on to writing.

I remain intrigued by Ms Booker's memories of spending nine years working in a Baltimore funeral home.

She begins to create a portraits of the people who make up the funeral home family. And then she stops and interjects what sometimes seems to be an entirely new book. All the tales are appropriate to a memior;.but it struck me as disjointed. I would get wrapped up in a part of the narrative and then be taken somewhere else just when I wanted to know more. More about the author. Why did she enjoy dating a drug dealer? How did she become so close to Ms Angela? What was her families reaction to her job/possible career choice? What exactly was her relationship with her Aunt?

Much in the book seemed glossed over. The most well written dealt with the day operations of the funeral home, Ms Booker's learning of the craft and the her relationship with Ms Wylie.

Ms Booker's writing style is easy to read. The pace of the book is good. At the close I wanted more from this memior.

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2013/09/review-nine-years-under-by-sheri-book....

I spent a long time reading Sheri Booker's Nine Years Under, and now I've spent nearly as long thinking about what to say about it.

Booker's prose is fluid and engaging. Her promise as a writer is immense, but her story didn't engage me the way I wanted it to. Maybe because I read A Chance to Win, and it is such a great book about inner city life, that I wished for too much from Booker.

First, she has the disadvantage of being a memoirist and limited to her own story, as opposed to a reporter/ biographer who has multiple story lines to choose from.

Second, perhaps Booker's publicist did her a disservice by promising
With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. While she never got over her terror of the embalming room, Booker learned to expect the unexpected and to never, ever cry.
While all those things are evident in Booker's memoir, they never feel like they take center stage; they are scenery, but the play is about a young girl struggling through the process of growing up, through having and leaving a beloved first job.

What was most missing from Nine Years Under was what I thought was its most obvious angle: Booker's parents. Her mother appears as half a character; she is her cancer, appearing only in horrid cycles of remission and recurrence. Her father is a presence but not a character. He's a Baltimore cop who can't watch The Wire because it hits too close to home, who has dedicated his life to make sure his daughter makes it out. But he never speaks, never offers advice or counsel.

Without her family, the characters of her life are limited to the funeral home's major players. But their interactions seem too limited to truly fill the surrogate family roles Booker assigns them. What was perhaps a compelling story in a 10,000 word magazine feature becomes drawn out and overwrought in a 300 page memoir.

Perhaps, in another few years, we'll see a second installment from Booker. I'd read it.

A fascinating memoir about the author's time working in a Baltimore funeral home. She began as a teenager, answering the door, and told by her parents never to venture into the basement, where the preparations were done. Over time, her perfectionist boss had her involved in almost all aspect of the business, including helping him dress the bodies in the dreaded basement. The inner workings of the funeral business are not common knowledge and an inner city funeral home has a culture all its own. Interesting and readable.

I received Nine Years Under through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. An enjoyable, easy to read memoir, the book covers Sheri Bookner's experience working at a funeral home over a period of nine years. It's an interesting peek into a world not often heard about, and, next to Stiff by Mary Roach, I would recommend it to anyone curious about the subject.

Sheri Booker is 15 when she gets a job with a local funeral parlor. Seems pretty young to be recruited for such a job, but it worked out for her. She was respectful of the job and the people, both living and dead. And she learned a great deal about herself from both. I found the book and the details fascinating and I love that she was frank in her revelations about the funeral industry that everyone is curious about, but don't want to appear morbid about.

Growing up and serving her community left a lasting impression on her as a person and I found the book interesting.½

There was something very list-y about this book. It seemed like the author had a fascinating life experience then distilled it to a bloodless recital of facts. It seemed evident that she wanted to present her past without diminishing any of the people in it. They all come off as slick and perfect characters with very minor flaws. That it all takes place in a funeral parlor hardly seems to matter. Death plays a backseat to the mundane details of the living.

Sheri Booker has written a book about the nine years she spent working at an inner city funeral home in Baltimore, starting at age 15. She gives us a peek at life inside the funeral home, some anecdotes about amusing incidents, and a little bit of insight into the African-American community that the funeral home served. Ultimately, though, I found this book disappointing. As much as she built up some of the characters, I just didn't like them very much. Her personal dramas were related in a way that made me feel like the point of writing the book was to promote herself. She made quite a big deal about how the death of her Aunt Mary affected her, but it was never clear why Aunt Mary was so influential. The only thing I could tell you about Aunt Mary after reading the book is that she died, and Booker was devastated by her death.

Some of the stories were excellent, but overall the book was just not very memorable.

Nine Years Under by Sheri Booker gives an account of the author's years working in an inner city funeral home in Baltimore. Its initial appeal is based on the same morbid curiosity which made HBO's Six Feet Under a hit, but the book holds its own and its reader's attention by rising above (no pun intended) the prurient nature of its subject matter. Booker handles the details of her work in the Wylie Funeral Home with frankness and respect, and manages to satisfy curiosity while also telling her own compelling story of growing up and dealing with grief. Nine Years Under is a book about living, ironically enough, and Booker maintains the dignity of that irony with skill.

This is an interesting look at a part of society that is often not discussed. The biography gives the reader an understanding of what is involved in a funeral home and into her life. It appears that dealing with death on a daily basis has some stressful effects on the personnel involved. I would say it takes a special person to embalm dead bodies. Interesting but not a light subject.½

I received Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sherri Booker via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. When I saw this book on the ER request list, I was drawn to it because I had previously read a book about a girl who drove a hearse, Driving With Dead People by Monica Holloway. I thought it would be interesting to see what working inside a funeral home would be like.

I found Nine Years Under to be well written and was easily caught up in all of the goings on at Wylie Funeral Home. Ms. Booker's writing kept me interested in not only the everyday operation of the funeral home, but also in the people who surrounded her as well. She was able to carry me through a wide range of emotions, both her own as well as those of co-workers and the families they served at the funeral home.

I was really looking forward to the behind the scenes bit of a funeral home. How are things handled? Is it creepy? Some of the protocols are really interesting, but for some reason parts of the book fell really flat for me. It seemed like everything was told by an outside observer, not someone who lived it. Very distant. Interesting, but flat.

Nine Years Under is the memoir of Sheri Booker, who turned a summer job into a nine-year career in the funeral home business. The premise of the memoir was interesting enough, but I found that the execution fell flat. I found that I never got a good sense of Sheri and her family. For example, she would reference the importance of her Aunt Mary, but never gave a concrete reason for that.

Overall, I found the story interesting and generally readable, but not overly compelling.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I went into it without any expectations. The author grabbed me right from the beginning. She has a wonderful way of drawing you in and almost being like a fly on the wall, experiencing her coming of age right along with her. Sheri Booker is very talented and I expect we will be hearing a lot more from her. I highly recommend this book.

This is a well written and interesting memoir. After experiencing a loss of a beloved family member, the author finds a job in a local funeral home. While immersed in the business of death, she is able to learn much about life. I enjoyed following her on her journey.½

Sheri Booker's first job was a little different than most of the kids her age. She was working in a funeral home, ushering mourners into viewing rooms and commiserating with their losses.

She stayed at this job for years and has many a story to tell. Most of those stories have a touch of humor and many are bittersweet.

A very honest and candid memoir.

This book was WAY better than I expected. It is never dry or boring, and that phrase "coming of age" that so often turns me off can just be ignored. Ms. Booker shares stories from her life experiences that are entertaining and thought provoking. The look behind the scenes of a mortuary is fascinating, and reminded me a little of Mary Roach. Never gruesome, thoughtless or dull, people are presented with all their warts. No attempt is made to hide or excuse wrongs, and life is presented as very valuable indeed.

This book offers an interesting peek into a business most people know little about. The stories she relates are funny, and heartbreaking, but her story is not limited to just the funeral industry -- the book also deals with her own family dynamics, and the losses she experienced personally during her tenure at the funeral home. In addition, the fate of Baltimore features prominently, as she recounts the decline of the city that causes so many of her male peers to end up at Wylie's.
I thought that the first half of the book was much stronger -- the second half was not nearly as engaging.

After the death of her Aunt Mary, at age 15, author Sheri Booker begins working at a neighborhood funeral home and the experience changes her life. Prior to her aunt's death she led a rather sheltered middle-class existence in Baltimore, Maryland. In this book she reveals the daily details and activities involved in the funeral business that the general public is not privy to or probably even considers as they look to lay their loved ones to rest.

She gives an honest and down to earth account of what goes on behind the scenes once a deceased loved one leaves this world and enters a funeral director's premise. Her 9 years of experiences in the funeral business obviously made a profound difference in her life, and yet she was still no closer to solving the mysteries and the unanswered questions that death always brings. A well crafted memoir about a job that will always be necessary.½

Two full shelves of my book case contain books on death and dying and funeral practices. Therefore this book is a viable addition. It was a fairly interesting book about the author's nine year stint at an inner-city funeral home in Baltimore. The writing was decent, but I lost a bit of interest when she included some of her poetry. I also thought that even for a memoir, it seemed self-absorbed, and didn't have a satisfying catharsis.