Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

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

3 reviews

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