Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean

31 reviews

gk1412's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective fast-paced

3.5


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ejs22's review against another edition

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funny informative medium-paced

4.5

Interesting and well-researched! Kean’s writing is witty and engaging. Some of the content can be a little bit upsetting, but much of it is handled in a tactful way. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend against only reading the chapters that sound interesting to you, but all of the chapters were interesting to me, so I’m not sure if the advice is sound! Each chapter is its own story exploring its own crimes or misdeeds, which makes the book very episodic in nature and super conducive to stop/start reading. 
Note: The whole purpose of this book is to condemn unethical actions, and it sympathizes with victims before it does anything else. If you’re worried about despicable acts being justified, don’t be! 

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lindapatin's review against another edition

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challenging informative sad medium-paced

3.5

Trigger warnings -- human experimentation, and an entire chapter on animal cruelty.  The information is still important and interesting, but those particular topics were very hard to get through

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kyliebloch's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.0


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lauramegan's review against another edition

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The author seemed a bit flippant at times about the atrocities committed. Additionally, he kept plugging his podcast in the middle of chapters.

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monstersinspace's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective fast-paced

3.5


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arijones91's review against another edition

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funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.5


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kjones13's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

This book was good overall, and I wish I could rate it higher. However, (and I'm not sure if this is just an audiobook add-in), but almost every chapter had an ad for this author's podcast. It made the otherwise entertaining listen sound like an infomercial. 

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phoebemurtagh's review against another edition

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dark funny sad medium-paced

3.5

3.5 stars

They some things shouldn't be attempted by the faint of heart or squeamish. As a squeamish person myself, I'd like to refine that: you can most certainly attempt, but you might need to skim through the physical descriptions of how to perform an ice pick lobotomy.
This was a good collection of scientists gone bad: some of the stories were disturbing and familiar ones I'd already heard, while some were disturbing and new. My only criticisms would be that while such a book must necessarily take a dark sense of humor, I found the author's attempts at levity in the face of evil just a little irreverent sometimes. More disappointingly, though, the author refers to bunk science as "voodoo" in at least one place; it's a small thing, but perpetuating a stereotype that African disaporic religious traditions that developed as a result of American slavery are somehow 'less valid' and the equivalent of bad science is below the mark for any journalist.
All in all, I preferred The Disappearing Spoon, but this is a good book, too.

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kc_onmybookshelf's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0


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