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Reviews
Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life by Katherine E. Standefer
richardleis's review
4.0
The second half of the book is where I became emotionally invested, where the braiding of memoir and information about metals in supply chain (where they comes from and the impacts of mining and processing on the local area) really comes together in a stunning way, and where Katherine E. Standefer confronts and embraces the complexity of the questions she is asking and their answers, none of them easy. This all happens within the context of the author's personal medical journey in a problematic health care system that left me sad, angry, and frustrated, right along with the author. A compelling memoir that neatly frames issues related to health care, profit and capitalism, colonialization, globalization, exploitation, and much more.
kpierce94010's review
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, Standefer did a great job highlighting both the emotional challenges of being young with a serious medical condition, as well as the problems with healthcare access in the US and in less developed countries. On the other hand, I felt she did a poorer job with the environmental/ global implications of her defibrillator. Specifically, I didn’t understand why she was so focused on the environmental implications of her defibrillator when she seemed to have no qualms about the environmental impact of her car, or her bicycle, or the plane and the fuel required to fly across the globe several times. Finally, while I think the US healthcare system prevents huge portions of the population from access to care and to insurance and needs dramatic reform (and shouldn’t be tied to employers), Standefer has the education and the skill set that if good insurance/ healthcare access was really as important as she said, she could have gotten a corporate job that would have provided those benefits.
khigz19's review
4.0
I really loved Katharine's story. It felt deeply personal and vivid. The back and forth through her timeline was interesting and engaging, and her exploration of the cost of saving a life was deeply meaningful, especially as a reader with medical devices that have similarly questionable productions. It would've been a 5 star if some middle sections didn't feel so repetitive, like we were reading about the same experience three different times with limited new reflection.
dianewreads's review
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
“And even when we recover from a condition, we never return to what we were; we become different, host to debris both spiritual and physical.”
I really loved this memoir. It is well written, emotional, thought provoking and courageous. For me, the non-chronological presentation added to the angst of her long QT story, search to understand the manufacturing of her ICD, and almost impossible navigation to, through, around our very sad health care systems. This is a book I will keep in my library; read again and recommend.
I really loved this memoir. It is well written, emotional, thought provoking and courageous. For me, the non-chronological presentation added to the angst of her long QT story, search to understand the manufacturing of her ICD, and almost impossible navigation to, through, around our very sad health care systems. This is a book I will keep in my library; read again and recommend.
pjdas1012's review against another edition
2.0
"I wanted to know whether the thing in my body was worth making. That my life was worth what it took."
A woman who has a defibrillator implanted to keep her alive travels along its supply chain to meet the people and the materials that made it. It's a fascinating idea for a book and truly made me think about the amount of unknown work that goes into the items we rely on daily. However, the execution of this book left something to be desired. The author focuses heavily on her romantic life and emotional state, and her values and priorities are so vastly different from my own that I found it difficult to relate to her. She also branches out and discusses larger topics like healthcare reform and environmental justice, which are important topics to bring up but sometimes seemed to overtake the original intent of the book. This is a book I may revisit later down the line, but not something that currently sparked my interest despite its interesting premise.
A woman who has a defibrillator implanted to keep her alive travels along its supply chain to meet the people and the materials that made it. It's a fascinating idea for a book and truly made me think about the amount of unknown work that goes into the items we rely on daily. However, the execution of this book left something to be desired. The author focuses heavily on her romantic life and emotional state, and her values and priorities are so vastly different from my own that I found it difficult to relate to her. She also branches out and discusses larger topics like healthcare reform and environmental justice, which are important topics to bring up but sometimes seemed to overtake the original intent of the book. This is a book I may revisit later down the line, but not something that currently sparked my interest despite its interesting premise.
nabilahs's review
4.0
When I thought this book is only about a patient who suffers with LQTS and had to implant ICD at her heart, its definitely more than that. From the mining of materials to manufacture ICD, the miners issue to the ethic issue of recycling materials.
Glad that I choose to read this book.
Glad that I choose to read this book.
laurenpedersen's review
2.0
I will recommend this book to people curious about life with cardiac arrhythmia considering a pacemaker or ICD as well as people who wonder what its like to be a person without an employer provided health plan. I was expecting a memoir about life with a cardiac device and a systematic review of the mining processes to gather materials. But this book was about a lot more - how health crises impact families and partner relationships, and about the U.S. insurance and medical industries.