Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

112 reviews

charlottedow's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Not for the faint of heart (or stomach) but an incredible exploration of the death industry in America and the concept of death positivity.

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raekit's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

3.25

Doughty is detailed and direct. If you don’t want to the details of bodies decomposing or burning, take a pass on this one. First the good: I liked knowing more about what exactly happens to our bodies after we die. I also like her assertion that was have moved too far from death and that this is not good for us as humans. Now the bad: there is one chapter where a chunk of the focus is on a very fat person who is recently deceased and it does that fat phobic thing of “just stating facts” but the reality is they are tied to a human. It was really the only part where I felt the people she cared for were written about disrespectfully but it was bad.

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indieandajean's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

I'm a massive fan of Caitlin Doughty and the work she is doing through the Order of the Good Death to change the American perspective of death and mourning from our modern moment of hiding and sanitizing death towards a more traditional mourning ritual of home funerals and natural primarily non-embalmed means of body disposal. I'd read her other two books, but had yet to read this one because I was concerned that as her debut publication, it wouldn't contain her strong narrative voice and nonchalance about the details of death.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was untrue and that this book was not only extremely well written, but was the key to understanding why Caitlin's death fascination began and how she used her experiences to start the order. This book is a fantastic piece of memoir, and it is also a great place for the uninitiated to start when learning more about the good death and the ways in which we can begin to challenge the funeral industry as it exists today.

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