Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

185 reviews

mnstam's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Blood

Minor: Child death and Death of parent

haleyhorrorshow's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

"Sifting through an urn of cremated remains you cannot tell if a person had successes, failures, grandchildren, felonies."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Medical content, and Grief

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Violence, Vomit, and Car accident

rabbithalliwell's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective

4.5

Content warnings only due to the fact that the whole book is about death and our perception of it. Caitlin approaches all topics with honesty and care.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

jlblumenfeld's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

emjayknocks's review against another edition

challenging dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

A poignant and informative reflection on modern death practices in the Western world. I appreciated the anchoring explorations about other cultures’ death practices, and I would’ve liked to have learned more! I will check out the author’s other books in the hopes that she goes deeper into that subject elsewhere.

I also appreciated the unflinching and detailed explanations of what happens to our bodies once they arrive at the morgue. I always thought embalming was creepy and this book helped me understand why; I am now inspired to give my body back to the animals after my death! Sadly this book hasn’t made me less terrified of being dead… I’ll keep reading books on the subject and hope for the best 😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Medical content

kamrynkoble's review against another edition

dark funny informative medium-paced

4.5

What a fascinating read! I listened to the audio, read by the author. While this book does detail/explain much of the process after death (especially cremation), the author’s musings on how we view death as a culture was even more interesting to me. She has a fresh, dark sense of humor without being offensive/insensitive. 

Heavy warnings for death (of a parent and infant death specifically, too). I didn’t find the details disturbing or disgusting (then again, I’ve seen a lot of horrible photos of dead bodies from my 911 dispatching days, so maybe I’m not the best reference).

All-in-all an interesting, engaging read that flew by. I’d never engaged with this author before but now I’m excited to check out her videos as well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Death of parent

mirandaleighhhh's review against another edition

funny informative medium-paced

4.0

This year I'm reading more about grief, death, and dying to try to confront and make peace with my death anxiety. Off the heels of Staring at the Sun by Irvin Yalom (which I did not care for) this was fantastic. I want to pick up a physical copy so I can annotate the parts I found most comforting and inspiring. 

It was also pretty gross! But no grosser, I think, than being alive and having a body. I was surprised to hear that there are death industry "secrets" - WHY? I whole-heartedly agree that the stark separation we have from death in the modern day is a tragic disservice to us all. This book reminded me that I am a person and an animal and part of the earth, and I have a place in it all both in life and in death. I look forward to reading more of Doughty's work.  

I didn't love the way she spoke about individuals who have died by suicide, but I don't think it was malicious and I did not get the impression that she is insensitive or uncaring - more the opposite. She is both giving it to us straight and weaving in her own anxieties surrounding death.

"In this way, my body's decomposition would also be a banquet. My corpse would not be a disgusting source of corruption, but a source of life, dispensing molecules and creating new creatures. It would be the finest acknowledgement that I was but one tiny cog in the ecosystems wheel. A blip in the majestic workings of the natural world. We all know how this story turned out. In spite of my fear of living, I chose not to die."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Medical content

breadbummer's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Grief, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Car accident, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Minor: Sexual content

nikenacs's review against another edition

funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.75

I picked this up not thinking much of it, both because I'd had a recent death in my family and because my local library was offering the e-book. And man, I'm so happy I read this. It took me a while to get into it, but when I did, I was INTO IT.

The ins and outs of the crematorium are interesting enough, but the true strength of this book is in its reflections on our society's attitude towards death. Absolutely 10/10 on that front. As someone who has had little to no contact with death in my personal life, this gave me a lot to think about. 

Very US-centric, which is not a bad thing, but instead made me very curious to research how the funeral industry works in Germany, and Western Europe in general. 

A tad superficial at times, oftentimes a chapter ended just when I felt like we were really getting into it. I appreciate that it combined more light-hearted personal memoir elements with philosophy and history as well as politics, but it could have been a tad more of the latter for my taste. 

But all in all, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this opened my eyes on how we treat both our dead and our dying.  Will be recommending, will be checking out more of Doughty's work. 

(And on a personal note, I knew I was right when I wanted to set up my testament and funeral wishes when I was in elementary school! Take that, parents.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Cancer, Fatphobia, Terminal illness, Violence, and Cannibalism

Minor: Addiction, Miscarriage, and Abortion

inthemoonlight's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Medical content, and Car accident

Moderate: Cannibalism and Suicide attempt