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Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'
The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetuated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean
1 review
_dasbrot's review
dark
informative
fast-paced
2.0
for the most part, this book was alright. it had some interesting chapters — especially the one about the guy who set Russian biology back 50 years, and the Appendix.
but...the way its written makes some chapters (e.x. the one about Edison and Tesla) very hard to get through because you can't tell whether it was written with actual bias or if that was just the tone, something i found incredibly frustrating.
he used outdated and racist terms about indigenous people to "stay true to the time" the stories were in, which i felt was unnecessary.
also the chapter that talked about sex and gender did not mention nonbinary people and used he/she instead of they, so while it handled it okay overall, it was lacking for a book that came out so recently.
there was also a use of "schizoid" and "OCD" as adjectives to call something "crazy", etc. which is was incredibly disappointing and ableist.
overall, i don't think i would reccomend it to anyone, but i didn't have a completely bad time reading it.
but...the way its written makes some chapters (e.x. the one about Edison and Tesla) very hard to get through because you can't tell whether it was written with actual bias or if that was just the tone, something i found incredibly frustrating.
he used outdated and racist terms about indigenous people to "stay true to the time" the stories were in, which i felt was unnecessary.
also the chapter that talked about sex and gender did not mention nonbinary people and used he/she instead of they, so while it handled it okay overall, it was lacking for a book that came out so recently.
there was also a use of "schizoid" and "OCD" as adjectives to call something "crazy", etc. which is was incredibly disappointing and ableist.
overall, i don't think i would reccomend it to anyone, but i didn't have a completely bad time reading it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Racial slurs, Medical content, and Mental illness
Moderate: Torture, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Miscarriage and Mental illness
use of ableist and racist terminology where it was unneeded
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