Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

34 reviews

bronzemist's review

dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Gore, Child death, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Vomit

sophiemartin's review

This book is a non-fiction account of an author exploring the different ways a human body donated to science can be used. The information in the book is incorrect, the humour while talking about graphic topics is jarring, and it is clear the author has not done their research correctly and throughly. I could not spend any more time reading the blatant disregard for fact checking. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Blood, Death, and Medical trauma

tpal_'s review

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Animal death, Medical trauma, and Death

Moderate: Excrement, Cannibalism, and Car accident

Minor: Abortion

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

funny informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death, Animal death, and Gore

Moderate: Murder

katieimre's review

funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death

jenmcvay's review

informative fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death

jhbandcats's review

challenging funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Stiff is the first book I read of Mary Roach's, and I was an immediate fan. I first read it more than fifteen years ago and have continued to recommend it to people since. She takes a taboo topic for her book and makes it approachable, funny, and educational.

Dead bodies have all sorts of potential futures. At a funeral home they can be embalmed, cremated, or dissolved via aquamation. Donated to science, they can work in med school anatomy labs, be subjected to crashes to analyze car and airplane safety, decompose naturally to assist forensic scientists in determining time of death, or be used in surgery continuing education classes.

Roach details the history of dead bodies, including stories on Burke and Hare's murder and grave robbery scheme and the first anatomy classes. She talks about failed whole head transplant operations; body composting; and bullet, bomb, and landmine studies to improve body armor. Her curiosity drives her to ask unexpected and occasionally inappropriate questions.

I think Mary Roach is a fabulous author. I'm glad I reread this fascinating book. She has taught me so much that I likely couldn't learn elsewhere. I can't recommend this highly enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Excrement, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Animal death, Cannibalism, Car accident, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Terminal illness, and Violence

bxtskr's review

dark funny informative

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, Child death, Death, Body horror, Blood, Car accident, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, and Suicide attempt

hanarama's review

informative medium-paced

4.0

Book at a glance:
• Science
• Non-fiction 
• Single topic
• Conversational 

In Stiff, Mary Roach investigates our relationship to human corpses. Through history and into modern day, Roach explores how we feel about dead bodies as well as how they have helped us advance science and medicine. 

I love non-fiction books focusing on single topics or phenomena, and this is no exception. Though lacking in a narrative, Roach allows the subject matter to work as a throughline through the chapters, creating a sense of cohesion as the book moves from donated bodies in anatomy labs, to crash tests, and to some truly horrifying mad science. 

Roach's conversational writing makes Stiff easily digestible. It's a fast and easy read, and often feels as though an acquaintance is sharing this information with you over coffee. 

Perhaps my only gripe is that Roach lets personal opinion color some of the chapters on alternative burial. Outside of the decapitation/head transplant chapter, this is the only time it feels like Roach is uncomfortable. Today more people are thinking about their death wishes and considering alternative burial, and I feel like Roach was a bit dismissive towards these methods. If we're going to be death positive, we should be more open to different methods of internment. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Medical trauma, Medical content, Cannibalism, Death, and Car accident

toobendy's review

lighthearted slow-paced

3.0

You need to have a certain kind of comedy to write jokes about death and this author doesn’t have it. I think I thought a single joke was kind of funny. It would have been more enjoyable if she just told me about the body farm like an adult instead of a preteen seeing something icky for the first time. She’s a journalist ffs

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma