Mrs Death Misses Death is an interesting concept for a novel. The story of Mrs Death, a black working-class woman who has the ability to shapeshift and is wearied by her experiences of her job as death meets Wolf who she begins to tell her stories to. Wolf begins to write down Mrs Death's stories and through Wolf we jump across time and places as Mrs Death shares very real stories about people who she has come across.

I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by the author and I this definitely drew me in as I listened to it on 1.25x speed to keep a good pace. I liked the whole feel of the novel being read aloud as it felt like a more immersive oral storytelling experience. I also think it worked for the style of the novel which at times has repetitive paragraphs. The audiobook is also quite short at just over 6 hours which I enjoyed. And Salena Godden does an excellent job of bringing her story to life.

I'm always intrigued by stories that humanise death as a person. The focus on life, on hope, around living life to the fullest and being able to unburden your conscience, and the conversations about death were all really interesting and well done. However I can't say I loved this novel, I felt like I didn't really connect entirely with the characters and I felt like the stories that Mrs Death shared were sometimes a little random. I liked the political and pointed nature of some of her stories and the way Godden hasn't shied away from that. When she chose to discuss the deaths of individuals who had a lot of international attention for political reasons this really stood out to me. But I just felt like there was something missing and the execution by the end didn't have entirely the cohesion I would have wanted. I also weirdly found there was a lot of swearing and maybe this is because I listened to the audiobook so it stood out more when the author was saying it, but sometimes I just found it a bit much all at once.

Overall I think this is a really unique debut, and I'd definitely be keen to read more of Salena Godden's work but I was left wanting a little bit more by the end.