Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

22 reviews

linneak's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gaslighting, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Addiction

Moderate: Classism, Death, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Medical content, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Stalking, Alcohol, Terminal illness, Grief, Antisemitism, and Cursing

jhbandcats's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

The first section of Empire of Pain is background on the three brothers who started what became Perdue Pharma; the rest of the book is about how OxyContin came to destroy so many lives. The whole experience of reading the second and third sections of this book is one of deep frustration and often anger. 

Keefe’s dense, heavily researched account of the rise of the Sackler family (they developed Valium so they were knew about addiction from early on) and the way they created the opioid epidemic is absolutely maddening. To see them literally getting away with murder is, well, criminal. 

Keefe interviewed two hundred people and had access to hundreds of thousands of pages of correspondence and depositions. He’s able to wade through this mass of information and create a cohesive, easily understood narrative. I know little about medicine and even less about business but the story he details was accessible even to a layman. 

Literally more than half the book includes references, footnotes, an index - this is a phenomenally well-documented work. Everyone should read it. It’s a testament to how the rich control the lives of the rest of us. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Trafficking, Drug use, Gaslighting, Suicide, Addiction, Cancer, and Chronic illness

korpney's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Suicide and Suicide attempt

tiernanhunter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Drug use, Ableism, Mental illness, Addiction, Gaslighting, Medical content, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Cancer, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, and Pandemic/Epidemic

maggie_the_ferocious_reader's review against another edition

dark informative fast-paced

4.75

🤯🤯🤯 Holy cow this is well done & also shocking. What a pernicious company & policies. It's bananas to consider that the family that marketed and sold Valium ended up marketing & selling Oxy & just wooowwwww. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Gaslighting

dannythestreet's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Stalking, Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Suicide, Classism, and Drug use

readandfindout's review against another edition

dark informative slow-paced

4.5

Style/writing: 4 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Perspective: 5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Death, Child death, and Addiction

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Antisemitism

laura_clarinets's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Gaslighting, and Suicide

cathuluu's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Gaslighting, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Minor: Antisemitism and Suicide

brinnet's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Very interesting look into a wealthy American family and their role in modern drug addiction.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Drug use, Drug abuse, Medical content, Child death, Addiction, Grief, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, and Racism