Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

7 reviews

emiliamaria76's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Grief, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Dementia, Death, Medical trauma, Animal death, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Child death, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Chronic illness

tjdewald's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.75

The story is good but the story is not one of the author’s. She is simply retelling what happened. It’s a fascinating story of ethics and disaster but it is so slow. I felt the ending in the epilogue could have been better. It didn’t feel “done”. I’m glad I read the book, learned about medical procedures in relation to disasters, and was able to ponder the ethical battle of medical assisted euthanasia. I would recommend this book to people who are genuinely interested in ethics, disaster research/response, and tough medical dilemmas. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Ableism, Blood, Death, Classism, Animal cruelty, Murder, Violence, Terminal illness, Dementia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Excrement, Fatphobia, Medical content, Cancer, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Body horror, Drug use, Police brutality, Abandonment, and Body shaming

bethboo's review

dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.75

This book tells the story about the 5 days that medical personnel, patients, loved ones, and refugees were trapped in Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina. Memorial lost power and then lost back up generators, was flooded, and suffered many losses of patients. The hospital wasn't fully evacuated for 5 days, and by that point, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the hospital's most ill patients were questionable. 

I listened to the audio book. 

I love investigative journalism, especially when the story uncovers some sort of injustice. I saw the ad for the Apple TV show and since I don't have that I thought I'd read the book. I wasn't a fan of how the story was told, how long it took, and the weird extra bits at the end. It made it confusing and looping to and fro without a straight timeline. And while the situation was dire and weird shit happened with the patients I don't enjoy the author insinuating that these doctors were at fault. I wish the author would have taken a more neutral tone. Like they rushed and told an overview of the story and looped back on certain "characters" and then skipped ahead and looped back and then overview again and then a random detail from day two and then aftermath and trials and then talked for over an hour about neonatal policy at the end? Let me tell ya, this book was about 5 hours too long, I hit that middle point and just simply wanted to know what the hell happened. Not in a good way. I did not get a straight answer out of this author the whole book. 

It brought up some interesting thoughts about end of life care, and definitely inspires you to prepare for the unknown.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Excrement, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Death

quiet_reader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Death of parent, Blood, Violence, Body shaming, Death, Drug abuse, Animal cruelty, Terminal illness, Medical content, Vomit, Fatphobia, Grief, Abandonment, Animal death, Excrement, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Classism

Minor: Addiction, Cancer, Chronic illness, and Police brutality

streberkatze's review against another edition

The first part of the book was incredibly gripping. Fink did an incredible job showing the reader the complexity of the situation and the sheer desperation and exhaustion that underlay everything that happened at Memorial Hospital during those five days. And she does so without ever being sensationalist. But while I appreciated this level of detail in the first part, it was too much for me in the second part. I gave it another try by listening to the audiobook version, but it was just too slow for me (especially so much has been written about the legal battle that ensued in shorter form). I'd still recommend this book. The second part just wasn't for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Grief, and Medical content

Moderate: Terminal illness, Cancer, Excrement, and Murder

alyssawatsonlee's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

3.0

The first half of the book is a very interesting account of what it was like inside the hospital during and after Katrina. The second half is an overly detailed, arduous description of the investigation that took place afterwards. While the ethics are interesting, this book could have benefited from a better editor. No one cares about every single detail of the investigation down to the car the investigator drives. I would have found an exploration of the government/administration failures, and a discussion of how this horrific event impacted (or should have impacted) emergency management much more useful, and was entirely left to the afterword. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Excrement, and Medical content

sara_lena's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness