Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

45 reviews

abbiecondie's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide and Suicide attempt

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

dark funny informative lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

3.75

This was a cool book that told the authors story of what it was like to work in a crematory. I could have done without some of the tangential info on Caitlins time living in a neighborhood where there were homeless people and how she started to have feelings with her friend, but everything else in this book was really cool to learn about. 

Apparently, it is exceedingly difficult to get into the funeral home industry because it is a family practice that is often passed down, and you find yourself in the existential career cycle of "can't get a job because I need more experience but this job is the only way I can get more experience." This showed Caitlin's journey of breaking into the crematory business and the background of her fascination with the dead, and how she realized her hated for embalming. The people Caitlin work with are also funny and enjoyable to read about.

I would recommend this to anyone curious about cremation and processing the dead, but caution anyone that might be grossed out by bodily fluids.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Blood, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

nadiajohnsonbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Miscarriage, Blood, Excrement, and Dementia

rabbithalliwell's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective

4.5

Content warnings only due to the fact that the whole book is about death and our perception of it. Caitlin approaches all topics with honesty and care.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

mleigh11's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

breadbummer's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Grief, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Car accident, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Minor: Sexual content

angorarabbit's review against another edition

dark funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

Context:  I have been following Ms Doughty’s YouTube channel for a few years now, it’s about time I read her first book. 

 

This is mainly a memoir and I am not qualified to judge Ms Doughty’s life. Her writing style is bright and breezy even when talking about serious things. That is not to say that she makes light of her topics, she absolutely does not. She sounds like the type of funeral director I wish my mother had talked to when choosing the casket for my grandfather. 

 

There has been many deaths in my life, human and non-human animals. And I have been watching the videos so the message of the book was something I was familiar with already. I can see that it would be very helpful for those who are having their first encounter with the US funeral industry. 

 

One of my fears about death is the mess someone or other will have to clean up. I would be happy if my cats could eat not just my eyeballs but the rest of me as well, leaving a nice clean skeleton to put in some anatomy lab somewhere. While it does not seem like putting bodies in the forest for the bear, wolf, and mountain lion to consume willt be feasible (at least not legally) in the near future, I hope  Ms Doughty and others will make a future in the US where loved ones are not pressured to go into debt while their grief is still fresh and where everyone can grieve as they need too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Car accident

Graphic descriptions of the process of cremation, embalming, and other funeral practices.

anushareflects's review against another edition

dark informative fast-paced

3.75

A unique first person POV on what it is like to work at a crematory with (often graphic) details of dead bodies including details on embalming, cremation, etc. The book focuses on death rituals broadly but follows the author’s own journey as someone who has worked in a mortuary for several years. Definitely interesting, but not for people who feels squeamish at descriptions of death or dead bodies. The author’s writing is engaging but she tries too hard to make jokes or be poetic which gets exhausting after a point. But still definitely worth reading. The Audible version is narrated by the author and her voice is a little annoying but overall clear. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

veeples's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This has been one of my favorite reads all year, hands down. I’ve followed Caitlin Doughty on her YouTube channel for years and I’m so glad I got around to listening to this book. Caitlin’s humor shines through that adds a bit of lightness to such heavy material, but not inappropriately so. I enjoyed seeing her journey in her relationship to death and her reflections on others’ who appear in the book and their own relationship with death. I’ve always had an appreciation for what she stands for in regards to agency in dying and opening up a conversation about death, and reading this has only deepened that.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Dementia, Cannibalism, Car accident, and Abortion

nialystic's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Suicide, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia and Suicidal thoughts