Reviews tagging 'Child death'

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

12 reviews

aleyajo's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

3.5

Memoir of a smart and empathetic neurosurgeon diagnosed with cancer. Epilogue written by his widowed wife. I found his portion interesting but surprisingly not sad, his wife’s portion was sad to me though. His perspective of the medical field informed much of his decision-making process when diagnosed; he had difficulty letting himself simply be a patient. He also understood the importance of not simply extending life - but of meaningful time being more important than the quantity. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cancer, Grief, Medical content, and Death

Moderate: Suicide

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

meditative and powerful, when breath becomes air journeys kalanithi's confrontation with his own close mortality, bringing to ironic physical fruition his lifelong reflection on life and death. 

detailing his time in med school, the subsequent residency, and his diagnosis and treatment, kalanithi weaves the tale of a man in the unwanted yet unique position of being both a doctor and a patient, providing a rare POV of being on both sides of medical care. the memoir is seeped w/ an undercurrent of calm and mulling, all held tgt by kalanithi's poignant writing. im v glad that he's written and left this book as part of his legacy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Death, Terminal illness, and Cancer

Moderate: Pregnancy, Grief, and Blood

Minor: Suicide and Child death

vienna_books's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad slow-paced

2.5

I always find it hard to rate memoirs. This is somebody’s real story and should be treated respectfully. It has very high ratings and many people seem to love this book.
That said: it was not for me. I mostly read fiction but I did enjoy memoirs like „Educated“ and „In Order to Live“.

First and foremost:
I would NOT recommend „when breath becomes air“ to anybody who is currently struggling with mental health, especially depression!!!!

I liked the writing and I feel like the author was a great person worth knowing. This book is probably great for people who work in medicine and want to gain the perspective of a patient.

There were chapters focusing on Pauls life before cancer which I sensed were more targeted to people he knew in person. Again I don‘t want to disrespect anybody but these chapters nearly made me stop reading. 

Then we got a few chapters about his career and work. I found these interesting but I‘m the kind of person that covers her eyes in medical dramas when they show humans being cut open by doctors. There was a lot of graphic descriptions of medical conditions that had nothing to do with his cancer. I was also not prepared to read about the death of new born twins. Again, not the books fault but it was very depressing to read. 

After I finished reading „When Breath becomes Air“ I asked myself: Why did I read this? I don‘t really feel like I‘ve learned something new about cancer. I had expected to maybe take life lessons from it when it comes to the topic of  death but I don‘t know… I maybe just could not relate to Paul very well? I feel like I would have appreciated the book much more if I had known the author personally. 

I landed on 2.5 stars because to me that‘s the average between 0 and 5. If this was fiction I would have rated it lower. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, and Child death

Minor: Suicide

kilonshele's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cancer, and Terminal illness

Minor: Suicide and Child death

emgovan's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Terminal illness

Minor: Child death, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

jasbeingjas's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Content warnings for suicide and loss of child.  While it might seem obvious as this is a book that deals with death and morality, these are two specific scenarios that were brought up that may be triggering to some individuals so wanted to point out.  The content of this book is heavy.  While I struggled in the beginning to get into it, by the end there were moments where I found myself crying or holding back tears.  There are very few people that I think would have been in a position to write this type of book and I will be forever grateful that one of those people, the author of this book, took the time to do so.  As someone who has been struggling with death and morality recently, reading this book definitely helped me feel, at the least, a sense of community, in that these are things many of us struggle with.  There were moments in the book that I struggled to get through, but overall I would recommend.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death and Suicide

balfies's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.0

Immensely powerful, visceral posthumous memoir by a neuroscientist-neurosurgeon about his shifting philosophies around life and death in the face of his work and his cancer diagnosis. This was truly compelling to read, I finished it in one sitting. He has a very distinct, intelligent voice. Feel like this is one to return to at big moments of hardship and grief in life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, Death, and Suicide

afion's review

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Cancer, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Child death and Suicide

booksthatburn's review against another edition

reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, Child death, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Blood, Gore, and Vomit

Minor: Death of parent and Forced institutionalization

marit_1305's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Grief, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Pregnancy