Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

3 reviews

tinnuben's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Ableism, Antisemitism, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Cancer, Medical content, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Genocide, and Terminal illness

marianneiriss's review

informative slow-paced

3.0

interesting, especially the first half, but the second half dragged a bit. felt that the point could’ve been explained with less repetition/circularity in a lot of the chapters, but i did already know a lot about it so not sure if that’s why. probably better suited to someone who hasn’t read anything about gene technology before! still some interesting insights though, but as an austitic person i didn’t appreciate how the somewhat ableist and frankly very outdated way that author refers to autism in the chapters on using genetics to cure disorders.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Medical content, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Ableism, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Homophobia, Terminal illness, Animal death, Antisemitism, Dysphoria, Mental illness, Pregnancy, and Transphobia

katherineclimber's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

I've also read <i>The Emperor of All Maladies</i> by Siddartha Mukherjee, and I think I enjoyed this one more and just got more out of it in general (although they are both 3 stars, this one is a higher 3 stars) and I think that's because I had some background going into this book having already take biology. The beginning of this book really had me hooked and it brought up so many ideas that I had never even thought about before. However, when I got about 2/3 of the way through I started to loose steam and I was craving a fiction novel, but I pushed through and I'm glad I did because I learned so much from this book. It was really insightful, especially with the personal experiences and anecdotes that Mukherjee added in, I think those really made the book more impactful and meaningful. Overall, this book just really made me think about how har we've come in understanding genetics, but also how much we have yet to learn.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Chronic illness, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Cancer and Death

Minor: Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, and Transphobia