Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead

 Mai Nguyen

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Summary

Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead follows Cleo, a woman whose life splinters after the stillbirth of her daughter. The novel begins right inside that rupture, with no attempt to soften either the physical aftermath or the emotional shock of loss. Grief here isn’t abstract or poetic; it shows up as bodily pain, simmering resentment, numb stretches, and sudden flares of rage. As the world continues to move forward, Cleo remains in some kind of state of denial, rejecting that she has lost her child.

As she pulls away from her normal, ordinary, usual stuff, her relationships start to suffer. Her grief causes her marriage to be more complicated, and her friendship with Paloma becomes particularly strained. Paloma gave birth to a healthy baby at the same time Cleo lost hers, and that parallel—once incidental—turns unbearable. Cleo’s grief often surfaces as sharp, sometimes darkly funny internal commentary, which seems to underline just how isolating “out-of-order” loss can be. Even the kind gestures she keeps getting from her friends and family don’t seem to be having any effect on her, leaving her feeling more alienated than comforted.

Then, when Cleo takes a job at a funeral home, she encounters death in its many variations and meets people handling loss in different ways, be it different rituals or beliefs. The funeral home becomes a kind of emotional holding space. It is less suffocating than her home, yet mercifully free of any expectation that she should be “getting better.”

Through these encounters, the novel traces Cleo’s slow, uneven drift toward something that might resemble survival. This isn’t a story about healing in the tidy, redemptive sense. It’s more concerned with how a person keeps going when grief feels permanent, unfair, and stubbornly unresolved.

Characters

Cleo is a compelling but often difficult protagonist. Her voice is caustic, bitter, and unfiltered, which makes her grief feel lived-in rather than curated for sympathy. At times, her internal monologue circles the same emotional ground, occasionally to the point of fatigue. Still, I feel that repetition appears intentional, and trying to echo the way trauma traps people in loops they can’t easily escape. Her emotional stagnation isn’t accidental, though it may try some readers’ patience.

The supporting characters have their own purpose, but they largely function as emotional counterpoints rather than fully developed individuals. For example, Paloma, in particular, represents the uncomfortable coexistence of love and resentment, though her characterization sometimes feels flattened just to sharpen that contrast. For the most part, these characters exist in relation to Cleo’s grief, and few are given arcs that extend much beyond it.

Writing Style

Mai Nguyen writes in a first-person voice that feels confessional and often confrontational, blending graphic physical detail with blunt emotional honesty. The prose tends to linger on discomfort, refusing the safety of lyrical distance. I think this approach gives the novel its immediacy and emotional punch, though it can also feel heavy in longer stretches. The style seems less interested in subtlety than in making sure nothing painful goes unacknowledged—a choice that works powerfully at times and less so when the intensity becomes unvaried.

Setting

The novel unfolds in contemporary Toronto, moving between Cleo’s home, the hospital, and the funeral home where she later works. These are ordinary, recognizably mundane spaces, which quietly reinforce the idea that grief doesn’t happen in dramatic isolation. 

Atmosphere

I’d say the atmosphere is raw, oppressive, and emotionally claustrophobic most of the time. Although the novel is advertised to have dark humor, I personally didn’t feel much of that. The grief and sadness are what prevail in this story. 

Final Thoughts

At three stars, Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead is a striking story about loss and grief, but it was not an easy read, especially if you have picked it up for the promise of dark humor. The good thing about the story is that it doesn’t romanticize loss or rush the recovery. 

I feel the biggest flaw is when the book sometimes lingers too long in emotional stasis, where repetition begins to stand in for depth. While I admired the honesty here, I felt the narrative flow faltered, and by the end, any sense of transformation ended up being muted. This is likely to resonate deeply with readers who recognize their own experiences in it, while others may find it emotionally exhausting or narratively constrained. Yes, I found it to be thoughtful and sincere, but just not entirely satisfying. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of this book. 

Key Themes

• Child Loss
• Death
• Grief
• Trauma
• Identity After Loss
• Survival