Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

24 reviews

kyriannaj's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.75

This book felt like the beginning part of a journey, not the whole journey. There's little hope or encouraging parts to hold on to in all the lonely darkness this book deals with. It's clearly an incredibly well researched piece, but with how heavy and dark the content can become, I wish more research was done to show us how to reconnect among this loneliness. Many times I felt it was building to something, or there was the start of a beautiful concept, only to be abruptly cut off and the topic changed leaving the book feeling disjointed. While this isn't the fault of the author's, due to it being written pre-COVID there is no mention of it other than the beginning author's note. Which left the whole book feeling very 'small scale' compared to what the world had just experienced.
The last 100 pages or so were incredibly difficult to read, especially with imagery. It's about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments, which I struggle to understand why they were necessary to include in the first place, at such a graphic level.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Child abuse

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, and Medical content

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Cancer, Chronic illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, and Abortion

the non-graphic summary of the study is that Harry Harlow was researching isolation, what it does to those isolated, how those isolated react upon joining a group, and how that group reacts. However as it went on he became more and more sadistic and abusive towards the monkeys. And around 100 pages are spent on this, in detail, with an attempt to humanize and explain what he did

moonbrained's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Grief, Sexual violence, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, and Chronic illness

Minor: Child death, Alcoholism, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Abandonment, Addiction, Cancer, Car accident, Medical content, and Pandemic/Epidemic

lilybear3's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

The writing is incredible and I wrote a bunch of them down so I could remember them.  It was really insightful, though I wished some things were more in-depth.  I don't know if that could've been achieved with a graphic novel format, but that's something I would've liked.  However, I did learn a lot about Dr. Harry Harlow and his monkey experiments, which a lot of people have heard of, but maybe just the most famous one (cloth monkey & wire monkey).  He did a lot more experiments with monkeys so check those Content Warnings.

Overall, I don't have a whole lot of thoughts other than I liked it and I'd be interested in learning more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Mass/school shootings, and Animal death

abennett542's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death and Animal cruelty

ms_elchert's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Alcohol

Minor: Dementia, Mental illness, Police brutality, and Suicidal thoughts

jessrock's review against another edition

dark informative reflective slow-paced

2.75

This book is a mix of memoir and nonfiction, illustrated in the manner of a graphic novel. It meanders a lot, and spends more time dispensing factoids than it does really wrestling with what it means to be lonely, and overall never really gripped me with anything it was saying. The second half of the book talks extensively about Harry Harlow and his monkey experiments; I'd read a book about Harlow before (Love at Goon Park) so this information wasn't new to me, but it's a heavy and distressing topic that may take readers by surprise to get halfway into a book about loneliness and suddenly be hit with ongoing discussions of cruelty to animals.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Mass/school shootings

valent1ne's review against another edition

3.5

first half was great & rly thought provoking, second half fell flat in comparison & I stopped enjoying it around the 50-60% point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty

kbrsuperstar's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

Hoo boy, I liked this quite a bit but it was emotionally grueling at times. I personally didn't find it hopeful in any way — the gist of it is basically "humans are lonely, it's how we are and how we've always been" — but by the end I was okay with that, if that makes sense. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

amberinpieces's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Grief, Mental illness, and Alcohol

kimmag92's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

3.5

This graphic novel was both what I expected and not what I expected. It felt both part memoir and part documentary. I did think it would get more into the history of loneliness and suggestions for ending loneliness but it didn’t.

Also, big content warning for towards the end of the book where the author goes into detail about some horrific experiments that were done to chimps.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death