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Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
19 reviews
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
rhi_reading's review against another edition
3.5
I awarded the book 3.5 because while the subject matter was interesting, the prose was a little over-written and quippy for my taste. The author’s breeziness around morbid topics is a key feature of the book that does benefit the text overall, but there are times when she would have benefited from drawing back a little and letting the actual topic at hand speak for itself instead of trying to cram in a pithy observation or half-hearted joke.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
leweylibrary's review against another edition
4.75
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.
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
ju_harue's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Murder
indieandajean's review
5.0
I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was untrue and that this book was not only extremely well written, but was the key to understanding why Caitlin's death fascination began and how she used her experiences to start the order. This book is a fantastic piece of memoir, and it is also a great place for the uninitiated to start when learning more about the good death and the ways in which we can begin to challenge the funeral industry as it exists today.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death
aquakirst's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Death, Blood, Medical content, and Death of parent
Moderate: Addiction, Gore, Dementia, Medical trauma, and Classism
Minor: Excrement
erinsampson91's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Terminal illness, Blood, and Grief
Minor: Dementia
asiaasiaja's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent
Moderate: Cancer, Miscarriage, Sexism, Suicide, Excrement, Vomit, Dementia, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Body shaming, Cancer, Cursing, Fatphobia, Xenophobia, and Colonisation
samlikesbooks's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Drug abuse and Dementia
printingbetweenthepages's review
4.0
Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent