Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

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

20 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

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

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

ejs22's review

funny informative medium-paced

4.5

Interesting and well-researched! Kean’s writing is witty and engaging. Some of the content can be a little bit upsetting, but much of it is handled in a tactful way. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend against only reading the chapters that sound interesting to you, but all of the chapters were interesting to me, so I’m not sure if the advice is sound! Each chapter is its own story exploring its own crimes or misdeeds, which makes the book very episodic in nature and super conducive to stop/start reading. 
Note: The whole purpose of this book is to condemn unethical actions, and it sympathizes with victims before it does anything else. If you’re worried about despicable acts being justified, don’t be! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Abortion and Animal cruelty

lindapatin's review

challenging informative sad medium-paced

3.5

Trigger warnings -- human experimentation, and an entire chapter on animal cruelty.  The information is still important and interesting, but those particular topics were very hard to get through

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

kyliebloch's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Slavery

monstersinspace's review

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, and Child abuse

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Blood, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Slavery, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Drug use, Racism, and Suicide