Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Still Life with Bones by Alexa Hagerty

7 reviews

vbarsi's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This is one of my favorite books of the year so far (I’ve read over 15 books as of May 2024). It combines history, forensic science, politics and religion, and cultural beliefs surrounding death with the anthropologists own personal stories and experiences of her life and her time doing forensic anthropology in Argentina and Guatemala. I think this is an incredible read, though it is gut-wrenching and challenging to read about the violence. It also shows how the United States is complicit in overthrowing democratically elected governments in favor of violent dictatorships, because it suits their financial interests. I will always think of Guatemala when someone tries to mention the United States as the moral compass of the world. Additionally Alexa highlights the corruption of the catholic church in Argentina

and their ability to overlook or help the dictatorship with disappearing people.

Overall, it was beautifully written, with amazing metaphors. The one quote that really hit me: “the work of mourning involves killing the dead or dying with them”. As someone who lost their dad at 10 years old this hit me in my feeeels. Will be recommending this to every person I know!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Genocide, Gore, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Gun violence, Child death, Confinement, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Death, Torture, Violence, Grief, Kidnapping, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

errie's review against another edition

challenging informative

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, Racism, Child death, Genocide, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Confinement, Violence, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Police brutality, Trafficking, and War

vigil's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Genocide, Death, Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Torture, Police brutality, Gun violence, and Child death

hgustlin's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Murder, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Child death, and Violence

librarymouse's review

challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

Prior to reading this book, I had no idea that the American-backed genocide of Mayans in Guatemala, nor the Nazi-affiliated disappearings in Argentina ever happened. In this book, Alexa Hagerty does a beautiful and poignant job exploring the atrocities and her experience exhuming the mass graves left in their wake at a human level. She breaks down the walls built up in many western minds between the body and the person they were; the stories they still have left to tell, exploring how that mental block helps and hinders in archeological and anthropological study. The respect and interest Hagerty pays to working to understand things unknown to and outside the boundaries of consideration of much of western study, like that of Maya cosmovision, shows there dedication to both her work and the people she has come to care for - both living and dead.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Suicide, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Death of parent, Murder, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Violence, and War

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Gore, Classism, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Miscarriage, Murder, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Violence, Physical abuse, War, Blood, Child death, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Confinement, Death, and Torture

thepennotthesword's review

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Genocide, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, War, Death, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, Violence, and Antisemitism