Good thoughts from someone on the "front lines" regarding this topic. The writing style was not my favorite, but the content was interesting.

(I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

You could say Penny Hawkins Smith is an expert in the art of dying, a hospice nurse by trade, she also talks about death on TikTok. In influencing death, she talks about how she ended up choosing that career, her own experiences with being way too close to death, and how treating her patients changed the way she looked at life and death.

I agree so much with the main point made in the book, in our societies (she’s in the US but it’s similar in my country) we don’t like to talk about death, we tend to use euphemisms and doctors don’t feel like they can be honest with their patients. How do you tell them that this is the end for them? That they have to get ready to permanently leave? Once you get into a hospice, it’s usually to live the rest of your life with the least pain possible. But the idea makes most people uncomfortable so we don’t really say the words.
I think that the more we talk about it, the better choices we may make when facing that situation. Especially for people who are really young and obviously not ready for that.

I also really liked the discussion on MAiD and choosing the way to end your life. I live in a country where palliative care is absolutely plagued by the overwhelming presence of very catholic people who really like to impose their beliefs on everyone ; so I’m not used to read about hospice workers being in favour of death with dignity measures. Friendly reminder (to the people who like to impose their beliefs) that we’re talking about people who are going to die short term. There’s no good reason to not let have some agency over that situation. There’s a lot of talk about that in the book too. Dying people are still people who should be able to make some choices.

So overall a really good read, I thought I knew everything there is to know about the topic but I was wrong. This was also written with so much compassion for the patients and their families, I really appreciated that.