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A review by devannm
The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine by Sydnee McElroy, Justin McElroy
5.0
Ok, does this book have some technical issues? Yes. Does it in any way detract from how enjoyable it is overall? Well, I would say no but judging from a lot of the reviews I'm much in the minority in that opinion.
There are several typos in the book - from repeated words to misspellings to words in the wrong order - but I would not necessarily call them 'frequent' or say that it makes the book in any way unreadable. Of course it would be better if the book had been better edited before it came out, but I don't think it's at the level where it really impacts the content in any significant way. Also there were a few pages taken out / glued together at the end, but again it didn't really affect the rest of the book at all, and I remember Justin mentioning on MBMBaM that they had to do that because they couldn't reprint the whole thing.
I guess it's a bit annoying just because the book was so damn EXPENSIVE [seriously, $25??? I mean it's a nice book but damn], but I try not to rate books based on how much I spent on them [although technically I used a gift card but shhh] so I'll call it a 4.5 rounded up. I thought it was funny and informative and I laughed out loud several times while reading it. Teylor's illustrations were great and I liked the pictures and illustrations they used as well. I've also seen quite a few people complain that it's just the same information from the podcast, but I read the book before I started listening to the podcast so it was largely new to me. I guess maybe it is better as a starter for the series if you are trying to get someone into it? Either way, I really enjoyed it.
Also I liked that it included some more recent medical 'procedures' and 'medicines' as well. I mean it's easily to be like 'oh old timey people were so dumb' but literally less than a year ago I sat at work and listened to some guy talk to my boss's dad for OVER AN HOUR about how you have 'four different colors of blood' and you use them to tell that 'your organs are only operating at X% efficiency' in what was literally a thiny disguised / 'updated' version of the four humors and he was deadass serious. Not to mention more mainstream things like anti-vaxxers.
There are several typos in the book - from repeated words to misspellings to words in the wrong order - but I would not necessarily call them 'frequent' or say that it makes the book in any way unreadable. Of course it would be better if the book had been better edited before it came out, but I don't think it's at the level where it really impacts the content in any significant way. Also there were a few pages taken out / glued together at the end, but again it didn't really affect the rest of the book at all, and I remember Justin mentioning on MBMBaM that they had to do that because they couldn't reprint the whole thing.
I guess it's a bit annoying just because the book was so damn EXPENSIVE [seriously, $25??? I mean it's a nice book but damn], but I try not to rate books based on how much I spent on them [although technically I used a gift card but shhh] so I'll call it a 4.5 rounded up. I thought it was funny and informative and I laughed out loud several times while reading it. Teylor's illustrations were great and I liked the pictures and illustrations they used as well. I've also seen quite a few people complain that it's just the same information from the podcast, but I read the book before I started listening to the podcast so it was largely new to me. I guess maybe it is better as a starter for the series if you are trying to get someone into it? Either way, I really enjoyed it.
Also I liked that it included some more recent medical 'procedures' and 'medicines' as well. I mean it's easily to be like 'oh old timey people were so dumb' but literally less than a year ago I sat at work and listened to some guy talk to my boss's dad for OVER AN HOUR about how you have 'four different colors of blood' and you use them to tell that 'your organs are only operating at X% efficiency' in what was literally a thiny disguised / 'updated' version of the four humors and he was deadass serious. Not to mention more mainstream things like anti-vaxxers.