Reviews - När andetagen blir till luft

När andetagen blir till luft by Paul Kalanithi

14.5k reviews for:

This was just heart-breaking. Loaned to me by a colleague, I appreciated the parts mentioning physical therapy and the difficulty of providing patient care when you know what their outcome is likely to be. The parts describing dissection of cadavers nauseated me slightly because I remember the sickly-sweet smell of the cadaver lab when I was in school-I am so thankful I just had to observe muscle, sinew, origins/insertions and not actually utilize a bone saw. There were beautiful parts in the book too but overall I came away feeling sad and sorry that the author’s beautiful little girl wouldn’t get to know him in person.

vincentread93's review against another edition

4.0

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

emrodrigues's review against another edition

3.5

sad

thejenhiller's review against another edition

5.0

What a beautiful meditation on the inevitability of death. Acceptance doesn’t lessen the pain, but it may help us embrace the fullness of the human experience.

tkdgirl83's review against another edition

4.0

Touched me more than I expected - very thought-provoking

cat_barnard's review against another edition

5.0

Beautiful

tweader's review against another edition

2.0

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

I thought his wife’s epilogue was better than the rest of his memoir.

I can see understand why readers find Kalanithi’s life and book to be especially meaningful, but I found his writing to be pretentious and arrogant. While I feel terrible for him that he was diagnosed and died from a terminal illness, I couldn’t connect to his message and I did not feel moved by life story.