Lessons in Taxidermy reviewed in Time Out Chicago:
There’s little sense of comfort in Taxidermy; it’s a brutal story, told with no sense of victimhood or blame. The result is a terrifying tale of a woman trying to live a complete life with a body that fails her in the most horrific ways imaginable. It’s the type of book that breaks a reader’s heart in the first five pages and repeats the process on each page for the remaining 155. The lone relief comes from knowing Lavender, now relatively healthy, survived it all to write such a stirring memoir.