I Need to Talk About the Girl Who Kept a Corpse

Currently Reading: The Decomposition Book by Sara van Os

Content note: This post discusses death, human decomposition, mental health, and human remains. It also contains spoilers for the portion of The Decomposition Book I have read so far.

Before we get weird, I need to explain something.

This is not a review…

At least, not yet.

I’m still reading The Decomposition Book by Sara van Os, and I have so many thoughts about this book that waiting until I finish it feels impossible. So this is officially a living blog post. I’ll be coming back and updating it as I read, Savannah makes increasingly questionable life choices, and I develop increasingly strong opinions about them.

Right now?

It’s fucking fantastic.

It’s gruesome. It’s uncomfortable. It’s fascinating. And somehow, underneath the decomposition and the dead body and everything that should make me want to back away slowly, there is this incredibly sad story about loneliness and wanting to feel accepted.

So, naturally, I need to talk about it.

Savannah, My Beloved Little Freak

The basic premise is this: Savannah finds a dead body near her house.

Her name is Ava.

Ava is definitely dead, but when Savannah finds her, she is still relatively fresh.

And Savannah decides to keep her.

We’ll get back to that.

Because before I became emotionally invested in Savannah’s relationship with a decomposing human being, something else happened.

Michelle popped into Savannah’s head just to tear her the hell down.

And immediately I went, Oh. My poor girl.

You know that thing where somebody’s criticism hangs around so long that eventually they don’t even need to be there anymore?

Their voice just moves in.

They don’t have to tell you you’re weird, embarrassing, annoying, too much, not enough, or whatever particular flavor of bullshit they’ve given you. Your brain is perfectly capable of doing their job for them.

That was the moment I connected with Savannah.

And once I did, everything that came afterward became much more complicated.

Have you ever had someone’s criticism live in your head long after that person was gone? At what point does their voice stop being theirs and become your own?

Also, What the Fuck Happened at That School?

Savannah loves Egypt.

Apparently, she shared that love and ended up being shunned at school because of it.

Except I have questions.

Was she actually shunned?

Was everyone really that cruel to this girl because she was passionate about Egypt?

Or are we experiencing those memories through Savannah’s perception of what happened?

I don’t know yet.

And that’s one of the things I’m really enjoying about this book.

Savannah’s reality is Savannah’s reality. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting the entire objective picture.

But regardless of exactly what happened, I keep coming back to another question:

Where the fuck were the adults?

Where were her parents?

Why wasn’t someone helping this kid?

There’s this underlying sense that being different, struggling, or being perceived as “crazy” is something shameful. Something that needs to be hidden instead of understood.

Personally, I’ve reached a point where I think there’s a certain freedom in accepting that your brain doesn’t always behave the way society would prefer.

There is considerably less freedom in adopting a corpse.

Savannah and I diverge there.

Do you think Savannah was actually being shunned, or are we seeing the situation through an unreliable narrator?

And maybe the bigger question:

How much responsibility do the adults around a struggling kid have when that kid starts disappearing into their own world?

Meet Ava. She’s Dead.

So… The corpse.

Savannah finds Ava and starts reading her Journal and then talking to her.

And then she just…doesn’t stop.

She trauma dumps on this body .

She talks to Ava about her life. Her feelings. Her problems. All of it.

And this is where The Decomposition Book started doing something to me that I wasn’t expecting.

Because obviously I don’t relate to keeping a dead body. Let’s establish that for legal purposes.

But talking endlessly to someone who cannot interrupt you? Someone who cannot judge you?

Someone who cannot decide you’re too weird or too emotional or too much and leave? Yeah.

That part I understand more than I would like to admit.

Savannah finds solace in Ava because Ava is safe.

Ava can’t reject her.

She can’t make fun of her.

She can’t tell someone else what Savannah confessed.

She can’t get tired of listening.

She can’t leave.

And that is simultaneously comforting and devastating.

Because take the corpse out of the equation for a second.

Savannah seems desperate for a relationship where she isn’t embarrassed, rejected, corrected, abandoned, or made to feel like she’s too much.

And apparently the only place she’s able to find that is with someone who is incapable of responding.

That’s fucking sad.

Could you understand talking to a dead body if you were completely alone, even if you couldn’t understand keeping one?

And here’s another question I’m still chewing on:

Is a relationship still comforting if the other person can’t choose to participate in it?

Savannah, Honey. We Cannot Keep Her.

This is where Savannah and I once again part ways.

Because Savannah doesn’t just talk to Ava for a little while.

She keeps her.

And keeps her.

And keeps her.

All the way through the decomposition process.

We’re talking skeletization.

SKELETIZATION.

That’s commitment right there.

I empathize with Savannah. I understand the loneliness. I understand the trauma dumping. I understand desperately wanting something that feels safe.

I do not understand reaching the skeletal-remains portion of this friendship and still thinking, Yeah, this arrangement is working for me.

Which leads me to the most important reader question in this entire post:

Be honest. At what stage of decomposition are you finally admitting that your new friend cannot stay?

Because Savannah apparently looked at every available exit and said, No thank you.

But Death Doesn’t Freak Me Out the Way It’s Supposed To

This part of the book is also hitting me differently because death hasn’t always been abstract to me.

There was a period of my life when I worked around people who were approaching the end of theirs. Sometimes my work involved caring for them afterward, including washing their bodies.

I’m not going to share anyone else’s story here. Those stories aren’t mine to tell.

But the experience changed my relationship with death.

A body after death isn’t a horror-movie prop. It belonged to somebody. Somebody lived inside it. Somebody loved them. Somebody knew their voice, their habits, their laugh, the annoying little things they did.

And then there is the physical reality that bodies change after death.

They decay.

We know that, obviously.

But we really don’t like talking about it.

I’ve actually been wanting to learn more about death and decay again, and this book is scratching that strange little part of my brain while simultaneously making me yell at Savannah.

It also makes her obsession with Egypt particularly interesting.

Humans have spent thousands of years developing rituals surrounding death. We’ve preserved bodies. Buried them. Burned them. Mummified them. Built monuments around them. Kept pieces of them. Created ceremonies around them.

We’ve always needed ways to make sense of the fact that somebody can be here and then suddenly not be here anymore.

So why does talking about what physically happens afterward make us so uncomfortable?

Why are we so uncomfortable talking about what happens to our bodies after we die?

The Body Is Decomposing, But So Is Savannah

This is the part I’m not ready to fully unpack yet.

Because I’m still reading.

But I can’t stop thinking about the title.

Obviously Ava is decomposing.

But I’m starting to wonder whether The Decomposition Book is just as interested in Savannah’s decomposition.

What happens when someone’s connections to other people start falling away?

What happens when loneliness, shame, rejection, and whatever else is happening inside Savannah are allowed to sit there untouched?

What exactly is decomposing here?

The body?

Savannah?

Her understanding of reality?

Her connection to everyone around her?

All of the above?

I DON’T KNOW YET.

And I desperately want to. Even though I know this is going to get more and more uncomfortable.

Understanding Isn’t the Same as Condoning

Maybe this is the thing fascinating me most about Savannah.

There is a gigantic difference between saying: I understand why you feel this way.

And:Savannah, what the FUCK are you doing?

Both can be true.

I can empathize with her loneliness without thinking keeping Ava is remotely okay.

I can understand why talking to Ava feels safe without pretending their “friendship” isn’t deeply disturbing.

I can recognize pieces of Savannah’s internal experience without following her all the way down the path she chooses.

Sometimes understanding a character doesn’t mean you would make their choices.

Sometimes it just means you can see how they got there.

And those are usually my favorite kinds of characters.

Where is the line for you between “I understand why you’re doing this” and “girl, what the fuck are you doing?”

This Isn’t the Final Review

I’m not rating The Decomposition Book yet because I’m not finished.

But at this point? I’m obsessed.

It’s gruesome without the gruesomeness being the only interesting thing about it. I came for the dead-body horror and somehow ended up thinking about loneliness, mental health, childhood rejection, death care, human decomposition, unreliable perception, and our desperate need to be accepted by someone.

Even if that someone is dead.

Especially, maybe, because that someone can’t leave.

So I’m going to keep reading. Despite knowing the book is also Sapphic…

And I’m going to keep updating this post as I go because I have a feeling Savannah isn’t even remotely finished fucking with my head.

💀 My Decomposition Log 💀

Current progress: 35%

Current Savannah Concern Level: Girl, please.

Do I still love Savannah? Unfortunately, yes.

Do I understand her? More than I’d like to discuss.

Would I personally keep Ava? Absolutely the fuck not.

Current theory: The decomposition happening in this book isn’t limited to Ava.

Last updated: September 6, 2026

Your Turn

If you’re reading The Decomposition Book, I desperately need to know what you think.

Could you understand Savannah talking to Ava?

Do you trust Savannah’s version of what happened at school?

At what point would you have said, Savannah, babe, Ava has GOT to go?

And maybe most importantly: Can you empathize with a character while also being completely horrified by what they’re doing?

I’ll be updating this post as I continue reading.

God only knows what condition Ava will be in when we talk again.