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Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
19 reviews
taleofabibliophile's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death, Body horror, Child death, Suicide, Car accident, Cannibalism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Gore
Moderate: Mental illness, Dementia, and Pregnancy
Minor: Drug use, Racism, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Cursing, Cancer, Colonisation, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, and Sexism
CW: mention of JKRalicia_m_andrews's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Blood, and Child death
Moderate: Suicide, Gore, Car accident, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Medical content, Miscarriage, Grief, Sexual harassment, Mental illness, and Cancer
vivemosnumasociedade's review against another edition
4.75
Moderate: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Mental illness
OCDsammantha's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, War, Fatphobia, Car accident, Addiction, Animal death, Blood, Cancer, Cannibalism, Suicide, Child death, Colonisation, Drug use, Medical content, Animal cruelty, Death, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts
qtcarolyn's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness
abookperson's review against another edition
4.0
My favourite quotes:
'The Bay's current fulfilled feminist Camille Paglia's lament: "Human beings are not nature's favourites. We are merely one of a multitude of species upon which nature indiscriminately exerts its force."'
'Bodies cremated in full, heads donated to science, babies, and some woman's amputated leg all come out looking the same in the end. Sifting through an urn of cremated remains you cannot tell if a person had successes, failures, grandchildren, felonies. "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." As an adult human, your dust is the same as my dust, four to seven pounds of greyish ash and bone.'
'In many ways, women are death's natural companions. Every time a woman gives birth, she is creating not only a life, but also a death. Samuel Beckett wrote that women "give birth astride of a grave." Mother Nature is indeed a real mother, creating and destroying in a constant loop.'
'Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, "The meaning of life is that it ends." Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create. Philosophers have proclaimed this for thousands of years just as vehemently as we insist upon ignoring it generation after generation. Isaac was getting his PhD, exploring the boundaries of science, making music because of the inspiration death provided. If he lived forever, chances are he would be rendered boring, listless, and unmotivated, robbed of life's richness by dull routine. The great achievements of humanity were born out of the deadlines imposed by death. He didn't seem to realise the fire beneath his ass was mortality-the very thing he was attempting to defeat.'
'At the moment I was alive with blood coursing through my veins, floating above the putrefaction below, many potential tomorrows on my mind. Yes, my projects could lie fragmented and unfinished after my death. Unable to choose how I would die physically, I could only choose how I would die mentally. Whether my mortality caught me at twenty-eight or ninety-three, I made the choice to die content, slipped into the nothingness, my atoms becoming the very fog that cloaked the trees. The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a reward for a life well lived.'
I WILL READ THIS BOOK AGAIN.
Moderate: Body horror, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Grief, and Gore
Minor: Dementia and Terminal illness
fionag's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death, Child death, and Suicide
Moderate: Drug use and Mental illness
ainsleys's review against another edition
3.75
The whole book had this judgemental tone, if you disagreed or had a different relationship with death, you were in denial, or even a bad person. For example, a family who chose a less expensive internet option for their nine year old daughter was judged and berated as being bad parents who didn't care. I can imagine nothing worse than after loosing a child having to go to a funeral home and speak with a clearly judgemental stranger about how much you're willing to spend on the funeral arrangements. All while the judgemental stranger tries to sell you add ons or extras that if you don't get means you are a bad parent who doesn't care. No thank you, I would rather grieve and process the loss surrounded by loved ones. Plus she lacked any empathy that the family may have been forced into such arrangements because they were unable to afford a more expensive, face to face option.
I also felt like important issues were glossed over.
Overall this book still got a fairly high rating because of the interesting premise and subject matter, and the structure of being part memoir and part history examination.
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Dementia, and Terminal illness
marisa_n's review against another edition
3.0
I found the information about the day-to-day operations of a crematory interesting and informative. Some of the discussions on culture and politics were also good food for thought. Overall, I learned a great deal while reading this. I also thought the author handled the subject matter respectfully, without making it dry/boring.
However, as interesting as the subject matter was, I disliked the writing style. I found the storytelling to be jarring, and the transitions non-existent. Her life story is told in a linear fashion, but she consistently breaks into lengthy side tangents (about culture, politics, etc.) that are only tangentially related to the current subject at hand. There also seemed to be little rhyme or reason to her storytelling-- in one sentence she's talking about her day, and the next she's talking about cannibalism. I found these conversational leaps frustrating, as it made it hard to stay engaged in the story. While her main point was clear--we need to become more comfortable with death and re-evaluate our current death rituals--she never truly connected these side-tangents to her thesis.
Overall, informative read, but it could have benefited from a good editor.
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, and Grief
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, and Dementia