Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

10 reviews

mmp1002's review against another edition

dark informative tense slow-paced

3.5

Larson does an excellent job in making the reader feel as the architects and engineers do. Perhaps too good of a job, as the first two-thirds dragged. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, and Child death

theabee's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Violence

Moderate: Terminal illness, Colonisation, Infidelity, and Trafficking

Minor: Suicide

eliya's review against another edition

dark funny informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

this took me f o r e v e r to read 
i started on sept 7th and MAN did it slow me down. took me 11h 46m to read and i was not very motivated to read it, but once you get in the groove it reads like gossip. 

some people don’t recommend doing the audiobook and reading at the same time but i honestly do recommend it. there are some differences in the wording, some paragraphs added or taken out here and there, but it felt like i got the full recounting. 

the author is very clever in the way he kind of leaves little foreshadowing clues - toward the end i think i was a little over the “that was… until” type of wording from him though. omnipresent in the most educated way lol. felt very much like i was living it // a work of fiction rather than an amalgamation of random facts here and there. 

really enjoyed learning about the chicago fair, crazy how many things were just accepted because of the time. i would not have like to be apart of that time lol. 

i made so many notes reading this lol there were so many fun facts that felt so important i’m glad - really glad - i read this but MAN i’m also glad it’s over 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Violence, and Classism

Moderate: Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Sexual content and Terminal illness

headachesince03's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abortion, Alcohol, Misogyny, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Bullying, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Child death, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Murder

beautifulminutiae's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Child death

Moderate: Abortion, Terminal illness, and Kidnapping

reddeddy's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Child abuse, Gore, Child death, Death, Drug use, Body horror, Confinement, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Infidelity

Moderate: Abandonment, Abortion, Animal death, Blood, Terminal illness, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Chronic illness, Classism, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, and Gun violence

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.75

The literary descriptions and firsthand accounts of the fair, and the effort and love put into it's design and creation made me wish I could have attended. The detailed descriptions of Holmes' murders and his disarmingly charming personality made me glad that I was born over a full century after 1893. I like greatly enjoyed The Devil in the White City, the second half was a far easier read than the first. I'm not sure if I've retained as much of the information about the fair's designers and the events that took place while it was open as I wanted to. While interesting, the section about the initial design process and the political lobbying that took place in order to get the fair to occur in Chicago read similarly to a textbook, in stark contrast with the narrative way the rest of the history was told. Overall, an informative and interesting read. I would use enjoyable to describe the writing, but not the content.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Gore, Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Abortion, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Suicide, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, and Misogyny

Moderate: Racial slurs

Minor: Xenophobia

rachbake's review

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Terminal illness

kendallreadsbooks's review

dark informative slow-paced

3.5

As much as I'm interested in both history and true crime, I wanted to be more in love with this book than I was. I found myself confused by which people were which, and found some of the chapters to feel quite monotonous. The last third or so of the book was by far the most compelling to me. That being said, I would definitely both recommend this book and would like to read more Erik Larson moving forward.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Child death

Moderate: Terminal illness, Medical content, and Racism

cassieyorke's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious sad slow-paced

4.0

Erik Larson is one of the most talented popular historians of our age, and he has one tremendous strength and one glaring flaw. His strength is the breathtaking beauty he injects into every line he can, and his settings are often so realistic that he puts you in the past, whether you want to be or not. But his one glaring weakness is his tendency to get lost in the mundane, filling half of his books with things he himself might find interesting - like architecture or naval engineering - while coming up just short of making these things palatable for the average reader.

Still, White City is one book I'll happily give four stars, since it does such a fantastic job of sweeping you away to Gilded Age Chicago. It immerses you, familiarizes you with lovely details of daily life, introduces you to key players and average people alike, then leaving you to marvel at the unspeakable lost beauty of the World's Fair. He does the best that a twenty-first century author possibly can at conjuring a bit of that long-forgotten enchantment and romance, and I found myself putting the book down and dreaming a bit about what it would have been like at night. He gave me a glimpse of one of those spellbound moments long ago, and put me next to long-gone people when they were still drawing breath - or holding it, like I was. The fact that I had to wade through chapters of engineering and architectural details to get there felt a bit like Burnham must have - building this enchanting vision out of plain old steel and glass and finally getting to see it, just for a little while. Maybe that was the point; I'm not sure. If it was, I'd rather have had just a little more adventure getting there.

The sections about H.H. Holmes were more interesting, if horrifically disturbing. Most people enjoying this book have probably been true crime fans, hoping for a glimpse into the depraved mind of an early serial killer. Maybe they weren't quite as disturbed as I was, or didn't feel quite the same sympathy for his unfortunate victims. It speaks to Larson's talent as an author that he made those young women as real as anyone else, forcing you to care for them like any other living person. So those chapters were exceptionally well-written, if difficult to endure.

Larson has improved his craft since White City, like all authors do, and his later work shows more talent at making the mundane more interesting, blending it better with the substance of the overall book. Anyway, I did love this book and I'd happily recommend it to anyone who wanted to journey back in time to the Gilded Age, to see what life was like in the 1890s. Larson is second to none at transporting his readers back in time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Pregnancy and Terminal illness