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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
4 reviews
drjorgensen's review
4.0
Minor: Ableism
jmapes's review against another edition
Graphic: Ableism and Fatphobia
cadence99's review against another edition
2.5
•the discussion of death practices in various cultures
•the authors personal musings on how best to manage the image and processing of death
What I didn’t like:
•chapters feel a bit disjointed in their themes
•the repeated use of race as a descriptor for ONLY non-white people when it is irrelevant to the narrative of the story being told
•pretty gross anti-fat comments, primarily in one particular section where she talks about her coworker declaring that despite the medical examiners determination to the contrary, the person MUST have died of a heart attack from being so fat and “This is why you can’t be fat!”- in addition to describing in great detail how fat bodies smell worse, but then dismissing the coworkers comments as “just fact” (even though he is literally ignoring fact by assuming the mans cause of death is not the one determined by the examiners professional assessment)
• in the same scene as above, repeatedly bringing up how her coworkers continually mistakenly say the person is Mexican, despite him being Salvadoran
•irrelevant added story where a coworker says they should fire bomb the city of San Francisco because it is a “hell pit”
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
ainsleys's review against another edition
3.75
The whole book had this judgemental tone, if you disagreed or had a different relationship with death, you were in denial, or even a bad person. For example, a family who chose a less expensive internet option for their nine year old daughter was judged and berated as being bad parents who didn't care. I can imagine nothing worse than after loosing a child having to go to a funeral home and speak with a clearly judgemental stranger about how much you're willing to spend on the funeral arrangements. All while the judgemental stranger tries to sell you add ons or extras that if you don't get means you are a bad parent who doesn't care. No thank you, I would rather grieve and process the loss surrounded by loved ones. Plus she lacked any empathy that the family may have been forced into such arrangements because they were unable to afford a more expensive, face to face option.
I also felt like important issues were glossed over.
Overall this book still got a fairly high rating because of the interesting premise and subject matter, and the structure of being part memoir and part history examination.
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Terminal illness, and Dementia