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A review by inuyasha
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
5.0
i want to tell everyone i know to read this
i - like doughty, like probably a lot of Americans - also had a very close experience with a sudden and violent death as a child that resulted in years of obsessive behavior and neurotic anxiety that has probably affected my quality of life in more ways than i can stomach thinking about so like... this felt nothing short of revelatory to me. I've never really questioned the death industry or why we do what we do, just kind of prescribed it to america's lack of well... any sort of culture, really. to understand the full extent of the industry, and the history of it, has now made me so violently angry about capitalism has completely eroded every part of my life - even my death!!! this has also inspired me to abandon my work for the day and start outlining a "death plan" for myself, which is something that would have made me spiral out of control just a week ago to even think about doing
despite being an extremely solid manifesto and having taught me quite a lot, there were some small things i took issue with in this. the third quarter of this book seems very weak in comparison to the rest, and the chapters all follow a pattern of "bold statement -> taking a step back to tell what feels like an unrelated historical/cultural anecdote -> bringing it all back together for a revelation about the industry at the end" which is fine/enjoyable, but i think a few of the chapters felt like she was trying too hard to stick to this pattern, and they meandered more than i would have liked them to.
i also wish she had hit harder on the fatphobia in the death industry and uh... hadn't engaged it in herself. lmao. some of the ways addits and fat people in this were talked about made me scratch my head given how careful and respectful the tone is to pretty much anyone else in comparison.
i - like doughty, like probably a lot of Americans - also had a very close experience with a sudden and violent death as a child that resulted in years of obsessive behavior and neurotic anxiety that has probably affected my quality of life in more ways than i can stomach thinking about so like... this felt nothing short of revelatory to me. I've never really questioned the death industry or why we do what we do, just kind of prescribed it to america's lack of well... any sort of culture, really. to understand the full extent of the industry, and the history of it, has now made me so violently angry about capitalism has completely eroded every part of my life - even my death!!! this has also inspired me to abandon my work for the day and start outlining a "death plan" for myself, which is something that would have made me spiral out of control just a week ago to even think about doing
despite being an extremely solid manifesto and having taught me quite a lot, there were some small things i took issue with in this. the third quarter of this book seems very weak in comparison to the rest, and the chapters all follow a pattern of "bold statement -> taking a step back to tell what feels like an unrelated historical/cultural anecdote -> bringing it all back together for a revelation about the industry at the end" which is fine/enjoyable, but i think a few of the chapters felt like she was trying too hard to stick to this pattern, and they meandered more than i would have liked them to.
i also wish she had hit harder on the fatphobia in the death industry and uh... hadn't engaged it in herself. lmao. some of the ways addits and fat people in this were talked about made me scratch my head given how careful and respectful the tone is to pretty much anyone else in comparison.