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chelseycatterall's review against another edition
5.0
An extremely smart, heart-felt and genuine autobiography of blood. I thought this was brilliant!
lindsaysofia_25's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
I have no idea how Hill managed to use such pretty writing to create such an astoundingly mediocre book. I'm not even convinced it's about anything. Sure, it's ostensibly about blood, but what does that really mean?
So many topics are discussed, none of them given time or nuance. Blood is the only through line. I think a book with that structure could absolutely be done well, but this did not do that. I would like to read one of Hill's novels because I do see a lot of good writing and I can tell that he is a novelist, but I have absolutely no qualms giving this book such a low rating.
I found that there wasn't a point in splitting the book into chapters because each new topic discussed was just as closely related to the others within a chapter as it was to the topics discussed in the rest of the book, and the chapters tended to become repetitive. I feel like Hill expected this book to be read chapter by chapter with long breaks in between because a few things were brought up in multiple chapters and defined in almost exactly the same way, as if to someone who had never heard of them before, every time.
I also found that some things were just way too gory for a book that gives absolutely no warning about that type of content. Some descriptions given about various appearances of blood in history are definitely going to haunt my nightmares. Maybe that's on me for not looking for trigger warnings, but I feel like it wasn't unreasonable to go into it not expecting that kind of detail from a book required for a high school English class.
So many topics are discussed, none of them given time or nuance. Blood is the only through line. I think a book with that structure could absolutely be done well, but this did not do that. I would like to read one of Hill's novels because I do see a lot of good writing and I can tell that he is a novelist, but I have absolutely no qualms giving this book such a low rating.
I found that there wasn't a point in splitting the book into chapters because each new topic discussed was just as closely related to the others within a chapter as it was to the topics discussed in the rest of the book, and the chapters tended to become repetitive. I feel like Hill expected this book to be read chapter by chapter with long breaks in between because a few things were brought up in multiple chapters and defined in almost exactly the same way, as if to someone who had never heard of them before, every time.
I also found that some things were just way too gory for a book that gives absolutely no warning about that type of content. Some descriptions given about various appearances of blood in history are definitely going to haunt my nightmares. Maybe that's on me for not looking for trigger warnings, but I feel like it wasn't unreasonable to go into it not expecting that kind of detail from a book required for a high school English class.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Minor: Murder, Rape, Islamophobia, and Slavery
smcarlson's review against another edition
2.0
As a social scientist this book frustrated me greatly. Although it contained a good deal of interesting and useful knowledge, I was still very disappointed. There was a much greater emphasis on racial categories, which are not useful categories, as they are based upon social construction, not genetics.
ladykate03's review against another edition
4.0
Having read a number of Lawrence Hill’s works, it is clear to me that Blood plays a prominent role in all of them. When I saw that he had presented, and published a series of essays dealing with the theme of blood I was intrigued.
Read Full Review: https://mybookbagblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/lawrence-hill-blood-2013/
Read Full Review: https://mybookbagblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/lawrence-hill-blood-2013/
prairieraven's review against another edition
3.0
have me some great ideas, really interesting would love to learn more but on a more technical level instead of based on generalizations and someone elses opinion
lifeonmybookcase's review against another edition
4.0
Nice, easy read. Some good facts, but not really a comprehensive look at blood.
morgandhu's review against another edition
3.0
Lawrence Hill's latest book, Blood: The Stuff of Life, is a meditation on the cultural and personal meanings of blood. An essential part of our anatomy, it is perhaps the only internal aspect of our physical beings that almost all of us, at some time or another, will see outside of its natural place. And it has come to mean so many things in addition to simply the red fluid that is so much a part of what keeps us alive.
"It’s hard to imagine a single person in a school, restaurant, theatre, hockey arena, hospital room, or bookstore who does not have a set of personal stories about blood. Maybe it was the blood of a distant ancestor, persecuted because his or her blood was deemed to be impure. Maybe it was a grandfather who fell under the blade of a farm instrument and bled to death in the fields. Maybe it was an aunt who donated plasma weekly for decades, or a sister who won international attention for designing a more effective way to kill cancerous white blood cells before they multiplied madly and killed the patient. Maybe something happened to you in the blood lab, or in the operating room, and lodged so deeply in your mind that you have passed the story along to every single family member. Blood keeps you alive, for sure. Yet, the very blood in your veins and arteries can suddenly betray you. One day you feel healthy and have just hiked up a mountain with the person you most love in the world, and the next day what you thought was a routine blood test tells you that you have prostate cancer and had better decide, pronto, if you’re going to opt for surgery or radiation, or tempt the gods by doing nothing at all. Blood is the lubricant of our bodies and the endlessly circulating river supplying oxygen and nutrients to our cells. But it is far more than a sign of your physical health, or an omen of your mortality. It has the potential to reveal your most hidden secrets: How is your cholesterol level? How much alcohol have you consumed? Have you been snorting cocaine? Are there any other residual traces that might scare off an employer, or lead a life insurance company to deny your application? What has been the average amount of sugar in your blood over the past ninety days? Did you cheat in that Olympic marathon race? Are you the father of that child? Blood won’t tell all. But it can tell enough to get you in a whole lot of trouble."
Hill's book is exhaustive in its examination of matters of blood, from traditions of blood sacrifice to the gods to blood donation policies. But while the range of topics mentioned is vast, one might wish for a fuller examination of them. In being encyclopedic, Hill has sacrificed depth of analysis. For example, in one section devoted to discussing blood as a symbol of honour and sacrifice, Hill covers Aztec religious sacrifices, Japanese seppuku, and honour killings of women in just a few pages, providing the literary equivalent of sound bytes on each, but little background or individual context.
It's an idiosyncratic book, organised as much by Hill's musings about blood and his life experiences, as it is by generally accepted themes associated with blood. I enjoyed much of it, though there were times that I wished Hill had spent more time on a topic, and other times when I thought he went into too much detail for something that seemed to me to be a relatively tangential aspect. But it's also a very personal book, and in many cases the amount of space given to an issue seems at least in part determined by the strength of its meaning in his own life.
"It’s hard to imagine a single person in a school, restaurant, theatre, hockey arena, hospital room, or bookstore who does not have a set of personal stories about blood. Maybe it was the blood of a distant ancestor, persecuted because his or her blood was deemed to be impure. Maybe it was a grandfather who fell under the blade of a farm instrument and bled to death in the fields. Maybe it was an aunt who donated plasma weekly for decades, or a sister who won international attention for designing a more effective way to kill cancerous white blood cells before they multiplied madly and killed the patient. Maybe something happened to you in the blood lab, or in the operating room, and lodged so deeply in your mind that you have passed the story along to every single family member. Blood keeps you alive, for sure. Yet, the very blood in your veins and arteries can suddenly betray you. One day you feel healthy and have just hiked up a mountain with the person you most love in the world, and the next day what you thought was a routine blood test tells you that you have prostate cancer and had better decide, pronto, if you’re going to opt for surgery or radiation, or tempt the gods by doing nothing at all. Blood is the lubricant of our bodies and the endlessly circulating river supplying oxygen and nutrients to our cells. But it is far more than a sign of your physical health, or an omen of your mortality. It has the potential to reveal your most hidden secrets: How is your cholesterol level? How much alcohol have you consumed? Have you been snorting cocaine? Are there any other residual traces that might scare off an employer, or lead a life insurance company to deny your application? What has been the average amount of sugar in your blood over the past ninety days? Did you cheat in that Olympic marathon race? Are you the father of that child? Blood won’t tell all. But it can tell enough to get you in a whole lot of trouble."
Hill's book is exhaustive in its examination of matters of blood, from traditions of blood sacrifice to the gods to blood donation policies. But while the range of topics mentioned is vast, one might wish for a fuller examination of them. In being encyclopedic, Hill has sacrificed depth of analysis. For example, in one section devoted to discussing blood as a symbol of honour and sacrifice, Hill covers Aztec religious sacrifices, Japanese seppuku, and honour killings of women in just a few pages, providing the literary equivalent of sound bytes on each, but little background or individual context.
It's an idiosyncratic book, organised as much by Hill's musings about blood and his life experiences, as it is by generally accepted themes associated with blood. I enjoyed much of it, though there were times that I wished Hill had spent more time on a topic, and other times when I thought he went into too much detail for something that seemed to me to be a relatively tangential aspect. But it's also a very personal book, and in many cases the amount of space given to an issue seems at least in part determined by the strength of its meaning in his own life.