Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

107 reviews

leweylibrary's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

I really, really want to give this 5 stars solely because of how much I enjoyed it and learned from it that I'm going to think about for a long time to come. But there were just a few parts that didn't age well and read as a bit offensive, so those sat funny with me.

Overall this book is a lot of morbid, informative fun! I feel like it's made me think about death and dying in an entirely different way--I already caught myself while watching the new Hunger Games prequel thinking about the dead bodies of the fallen tributes and how decomposed they must have been lol. It also connected some dots for me about past experiences concerning death. I had always thought I was uncomfortable with the first funeral I ever went to just because it was my first funeral, but I think I really was uncomfortable with the unnatural-ness of that funeral, how my great aunt didn't look like her anymore and she didn't look...dead enough to be dead.

I really want an updated version of this book--surely there are more "green" burial options now 10 years later? I also went ahead and put holds on all of the author's other books. Not only do I love the subject matter she focuses on, but I love her writing. She reminds me of Jenny Lawson with how deep and personal she can get but then also crack a weird, inappropriate joke in the next breath lol. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness and Dementia

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, and Terminal illness

miastr's review against another edition

funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

craighead_the_wolf's review

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Medical content

tipsyspacedragon's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.5

I had a wonderful time with this book. Caitlin's breadth of experiences and research mesh delightfully with her personality and humour in this piece.
 
I imagine even reading this without prior context, I would still feel depth of connection to the subject, through the experiences shared here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Gore and Medical content

Minor: Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

mcornell's review against another edition

dark hopeful slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Excrement, and Medical content

ju_harue's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Murder

mothstrand's review

dark funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Medical content

good_names_dont_exist's review

dark funny informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Medical content

Moderate: Suicide

weelasswithabook's review

dark emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

4.5

CW: graphic descriptions of death, decomposition, body preparation, mentions of baby death and loss, cannibalism, suicide

🌟 Non Fiction
🌟 Popular Science/Autobiographical

This was an interesting read. At surface level, it's a book filled with insights and tidbits of information regarding the life of a crematorium worker. At it's heart, it explores the reckoning of coming to terms with your own mortality and making a difference moving forwards. 

Featuring rather gruesome descriptions of death, the decomposition process and pre-burial/cremation preparations, I'd approach with caution if you have a weak stomach. There's also something triggering about the emotionally detached discussions around disposal of infant remains (although not don't callously, it did deeply affect me in a certain way), but it's relevant to the book itself. 

One thing that jumped out to me and changed my perceptions was CDs lack of judgement. Exploring different cultures post mortem processes, there was no criticisms there, only the acceptance that something that seems so abstract and gruesome to us is part of someone's sacred culture. For example, tribal rituals where cannibalism is involved. Most people would recoil instantly, buy Doughty discusses these rituals with respect and emphasising how this is simply a different cultures practise and how to them, our ideals of cremation and/or preserving corpses would be looked down upon. So I really appreciated that aspect of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

maggies's review against another edition

dark funny informative fast-paced

3.0

Really really really heed the content warning at the start of the book. Doughty can be very flippant in her descriptions, and while I understand this to be part of her overall goal of demystifying the death industry, it was at times shocking. I learned a lot, but it was all probably stuff I didn't feel a particular need to learn, so take from that what you will. She is a very entertaining writer, despite the subject matter (or perhaps because of it?)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Death of parent, and Murder