Although "Death Sentences" has received little individual attention, A Wake for the Living received favorable reviews upon its publication in 2003. Lazic has long been a respected and influential poet in Serbia, but this collection was her first book translated into English, and it has made a positive impression in the English-speaking critical community. For example, in her review of the book for Library Journal, Heather Wright praises Lazic's "honest and straightforward style" and calls Lazic's work "illuminating." Similarly, in a review for Booklist, Patricia Monaghan characterizes A Wake for the Living as a "startling, bold, assertively sexual work" filled with "stunningly unsentimental poetry" that may for some readers "be unsettling" but for others will offer "a welcome breath of truth."

In the Washington Post, Edward Hirsch calls A Wake for the Living "utterly convincing" and notes, "Lazic writes as a feminist with a dark sense of...