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Reviews tagging 'Addiction'
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
23 reviews
ha1yan's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Child death, Animal death, Miscarriage, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Dementia, Car accident, and Cancer
Minor: Misogyny and Gun violence
Detailed descriptions of corpses in various stages of decompositionmarisa_n's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Not for the faint-hearted. This book is a mashup of memoir, politics, science, and history--all related to death, cadavers, and death rituals. This book follows the author's life as she explores her relationship with death, it gives you a peak into her day-to-day life as a mortician, and it her includes her thoughts on death rituals.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, and Grief
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, and Dementia
rileyreadsbooks's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Child death
Moderate: Suicide
Minor: Addiction
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