Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetuated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean

3 reviews

mfrisk's review

challenging dark informative slow-paced

3.0

I’ve been reading a lot more this year and getting through books quicker especially those I’ve enjoyed. However, this read took me several months to finish. 

I note this because while I find the overall subject interesting and also important in terms of the fields of science, medicine, and fields which intersect with these areas I don’t feel like these stories were given the appropriate weight and critical lens. As many reviewers mention inappropriate terminology is used for a variety of marginalized populations within this book and I often felt the author was trying to get a laugh out of us (the readers) more than they were working to connect the story to their larger point of morality and ethics. The podcast plugs were annoying but not as egregious as the lack of depth certain stories were given when they covered very sensitive topics. It may not have hurt for their to be additional commentary from other folks especially in stories where marginalized populations were involved and that was only touched on a surface level. I’ve listened to the podcast as well after reading some stories in this book and it has similar issues seen in this book. 

Also want to add this book could have used a more central defining element or at least narrowing down to specific field or some other way to make this more focused. It often was confusing that the stories felt so disconnected and the conclusion doesn’t quite pull together the ideas enough. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Slavery, Self harm, Misogyny, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, Torture, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Murder, Racism, and Sexism

livdelrosso's review

dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Torture, and Pedophilia

reviewsandreadathons's review

dark funny informative sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Medical content, Ableism, Death, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Transphobia