Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

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

30 reviews

dreadspawn's review

dark informative medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, Animal cruelty, Slavery, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization

churrocaitie's review

adventurous dark informative medium-paced

5.0

What an amazing book. I love “niche” history and this book takes the cake. And Sam Kean’s writing is perfect for me. I enjoyed how he structured the book in each chapter, and told the stories so well of these “mad scientists”. I almost wish he had this book longer, I kept wanting to learn more. What a perfect book for someone like me who enjoys weird, dark history. And, of course, makes you really think about humanity.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, War, Genocide, Animal cruelty, Sexual content, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Torture, Transphobia, Animal death, Murder, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Gore, and Racism

Minor: Trafficking

boop123's review

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Rape, Medical trauma, Murder, Animal cruelty, Slavery, Violence, Suicide, Sexual assault, Death, Body horror, Racism, and Gore

Moderate: Pedophilia, Transphobia, War, and Antisemitism

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Adult/minor relationship, and Miscarriage

angela_iseli's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Medical content, Gore, Medical trauma, Murder, and Body horror

tweisenberger's review

challenging dark emotional informative fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty

alyssatuininga's review

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

 Fascinating book documenting the dark side of science. This book looks at things like Nazi doctors, grave robbing anatomists, the Tuskeegee experiment, etc.  I knew many of the stories in the book already but many of the questions that this book raised were super interesting and really made me think about these issues. I really enjoy Sam Kean’s writing (although I enjoyed The Violinst’s Thumb more). There was definitely some difficult subject matter in this book but it was well worth a read (although I will admit I skipped the animal torture chapter). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Slavery, Murder, Torture, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical trauma

silver_valkyrie_reads's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Classism, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Grief, and Torture

Minor: Abortion, Pedophilia, and Miscarriage

siobhanward's review

informative medium-paced

3.5

 

Usually these kinds of books don't get to me, but this one had some moments that just put me on edge. This book is filled with graphic descriptions, so please check TWs before reading, since a good deal of it could be triggering.

All that to say, this was an interesting read overall. I appreciated that the chapters were fairly long, which meant an in-depth look at the topics at hand, rather than short, disjointed pieces. I will say, however, that a good deal of this felt like an advertisement for Kean's podcast - so many footnotes just ended with "for more info, check out episode x of my podcast" which got annoying pretty quickly.

Overall, Kean handles a number of sensitive topics with respect - the topics he chose were interesting and seemingly well-researched, and I enjoyed learning more about things I only had a general knowledge of before (including what an ice pick is apparently, because I realized while reading, I always pictured ice axes before...).

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, Medical content, Child abuse, Gore, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Blood, Dysphoria, Excrement, Confinement, Colonisation, Body horror, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Abortion and Antisemitism

octobarbie's review

dark informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty

gk1412's review

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Antisemitism, Death, Racism, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Deportation, Hate crime, Transphobia, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Classism, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence