Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

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

107 reviews

angorarabbit's review against another edition

dark funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

Context:  I have been following Ms Doughty’s YouTube channel for a few years now, it’s about time I read her first book. 

 

This is mainly a memoir and I am not qualified to judge Ms Doughty’s life. Her writing style is bright and breezy even when talking about serious things. That is not to say that she makes light of her topics, she absolutely does not. She sounds like the type of funeral director I wish my mother had talked to when choosing the casket for my grandfather. 

 

There has been many deaths in my life, human and non-human animals. And I have been watching the videos so the message of the book was something I was familiar with already. I can see that it would be very helpful for those who are having their first encounter with the US funeral industry. 

 

One of my fears about death is the mess someone or other will have to clean up. I would be happy if my cats could eat not just my eyeballs but the rest of me as well, leaving a nice clean skeleton to put in some anatomy lab somewhere. While it does not seem like putting bodies in the forest for the bear, wolf, and mountain lion to consume willt be feasible (at least not legally) in the near future, I hope  Ms Doughty and others will make a future in the US where loved ones are not pressured to go into debt while their grief is still fresh and where everyone can grieve as they need too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Suicide, Dementia, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Car accident

Graphic descriptions of the process of cremation, embalming, and other funeral practices.

veeples's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This has been one of my favorite reads all year, hands down. I’ve followed Caitlin Doughty on her YouTube channel for years and I’m so glad I got around to listening to this book. Caitlin’s humor shines through that adds a bit of lightness to such heavy material, but not inappropriately so. I enjoyed seeing her journey in her relationship to death and her reflections on others’ who appear in the book and their own relationship with death. I’ve always had an appreciation for what she stands for in regards to agency in dying and opening up a conversation about death, and reading this has only deepened that.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Child death, Grief, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Car accident, Dementia, Abortion, Cancer, and Cannibalism

nialystic's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Suicide, Gore, Child death, Body horror, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Fatphobia and Suicidal thoughts

finnickdeservedbetter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Themes

• Death and mortality
• Death positivity and death plans
• The American/western Death industry
• Confronting the fear of death
• Death practices

My Thoughts:
Baby's (23yo's) first memior!

I was already familiar with Caitlin prior to reading this. Both through her YouTube videos and having read her other two novels.

Favourite Quote:

“Through the thick fog, I coyld barely make out a sign above the road: cemetery, 1 mile. I strode up the hill, walking straight down the center of the road with big, bild steps—bigger and bolder than my cardiovascular health should have allowed for."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

Minor: Medical content, Blood, Miscarriage, and Death of parent

burningbeaker's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Child death, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Death

alicroz34's review against another edition

dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

This book is full of really excellent, extremely dark information. It does, however, very much read like someone's first book. It hits its stride after the first quarter or so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Blood, Addiction, Miscarriage, Dementia, Cannibalism, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Racial slurs, Addiction, Sexism, Racism, and Misogyny

lkliemann's review against another edition

funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content

Moderate: Death

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt

alex_bousquet's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.75

Seemed immature in writing style. Caitlin had a woe is me attitude throughout the entire book, refusing to ask for help when needed then complaining how she had to do alot of things all alone within the crematory she worked in. She also talked more about her past and living in Hawaii than she did about the actual crematory business as a whole. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Death, and Grief

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

doriangaymer's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

Affectionately, we are all going to die. It is what it is. Our culture is obsessed with living and dying in equal measure. In the modern world, medicine is at once a blessing and a curse. We live longer now, and in that longevity, we have come to fear not only dying, which is natural, but death itself, which is not. Or, rather, it shouldn't be. We should be more accepting of death. See it as a friend waiting to guide us to whatever we believe the end will be. And sometimes, we need a guide in life to help guide our minds to acceptance. 

This book is that guide. A sometimes dark, yet lighthearted, look at the death industry by Caitlin Doughty of "Ask a Mortician" fame. After knitting a blanket and binging all the videos on her Youtube channel, I bought this book. It will be reread in the future, and contains a wonderful list of sources for further reading on the subject.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, Child death, and Suicidal thoughts

frankieclc's review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Child death, Grief, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Cannibalism, Suicide, Body horror, and Gore