Konnikova’s writing style is conversational and alive, but it can get a bit dense when she describes the psychology experiments to support her claims. Many of them seem too complex to translate to the printed page, and simplifying terms a bit here and there would have helped.

Death is one of the most widespread and pervasive fears the human race shares. We know we’ll have to explain it to a young child regarding a pet or grandparent (or worse) some time, and we know we’ll meet our own one day.