Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey Into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton

8 reviews

modernhobbitvibes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

4.0

I CANNOT find the bookstagrammer who recommended this in a video, but shout out to them, this was kind of a banger.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Terminal illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Confinement, Mental illness, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Violence and Gore

Minor: Racism, Colonisation, and Suicide

Entire book is about survival situations in extreme conditions, including the risk of death by starvation/freezing and explicit death by drowning. There is also discussion of the effects of global warming in the author's notes.

not_another_ana's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

4.75

Only two things were certain: it would get colder, and it would get darker.

An account of a little known Antarctic expedition, the triumphs they achieved and all the calamities and horrors they had to endure during the long polar night. It's the end of the 19th century and there's still a couple of wild places unconquered by men, one of them being the Antarctic. While the Arctic had seen its fair share of famous (and tragic) expeditions, until then the southernmost continent had remained practically untouched. Enter Adrien de Gerlache, a young Belgian navy officer with a dream and an unquenchable thirst for adventure. Putting together an expedition for scientific purposes, and the glory of the then new nation of Belgium, he embarked on a voyage that would prove fruitful yet dangerous and disturbing.

Incredibly engaging and well narrated story. I was hooked from the very beginning and desperate to know more. As a modern person it is hard to imagine what the crew of this ship went through for almost two years, completely trapped and separated from the rest of the world, but the author does an upstanding job at creating the ambience and putting the situation in perspective. You can tell this was a well researched labor of love, that Julian Sancton was fascinated with all the little details that make up this story.  Not only was the situation captivating and terrorific, but the actual people who lived through this were engaging, intelligent, flawed and deeply human. The use of the diaries in this book was masterfully done and really connected me with the men trapped in the ice. 

While I think it all flows quite nicely and it is easy enough to get into, some of the heavy sailing and ship terminology did fly over my head quite a bit. I never felt like it dragged, but it certainly required concentration and imagination to be able to wrap my head around the scale of the situation. I also read this while on a cruise ship and I very much recommend it, it gave the book an extra atmosphere and added to the horror of it all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

katiefronk's review

adventurous challenging emotional informative sad slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Death and Mental illness

Minor: Medical content

mondovertigo's review

adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Confinement, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Child death and Death of parent

spooderman's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Colonisation, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, and Death

Moderate: Child death, Sexism, Drug use, Excrement, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Addiction, Infidelity, Cancer, Cannibalism, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts

sarah984's review against another edition

adventurous informative medium-paced

4.0

This was a really interesting story of Antarctic adventure and bad decisions. Several people on board the ship kept detailed diaries (and later wrote memoirs of varying accuracy) so many events are illustrated in the participants' own words. This really gives you a feel of the group dynamics on board, which is important in an isolation story about a small group. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Chronic illness, Medical content, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Colonisation, Death, Excrement, Racism, and Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Cannibalism, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, and Infidelity

srm's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

3.75

I love cold weather disaster stories. This one in an interesting addition to that genre, particular the look at an early  Roald Amundsen. But in so many ways, this is an expedition full of folks who had no business leaving home that it's less enjoyable than account of more competent explorers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Confinement, Death, and Medical content

Minor: Chronic illness

sirissacgluten's review against another edition

adventurous challenging informative tense slow-paced

4.0

I love reading about the Arctic, so I decided to venture southward and learn more about its polar (ha) opposite. Madhouse at the End of the Earth is a detailed, gripping account of the Belgica expedition in the late 1890s. Julian Sancton has deftly recreated the unforgiving Antarctic landscapes the crew encountered, using excerpts from the sailors’ diaries to bring the ship’s fraught tensions to life.

It took the story awhile to get to the southernmost continent, and I wasn’t as captivated by the backstory as I was by the time spent in Antarctica (though it was helpful groundwork for certain decisions and dynamics). I was especially intrigued by the ship surgeon (Frederick Cook, who later became an infamous huckster after oil schemes and widespread doubt over his purported discovery of the North Pole). Cook’s innovative tactics and keen observations saved the Belgica and her passengers more than once.

4/5: An entertaining (and stressful) story of polar exploration gone awry. Perfect for fans of other survival stories and anything Arctic/Antarctic.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Colonisation and Violence

Minor: Cannibalism