Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose by Leigh Cowart

12 reviews

arlangrey17's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, and Vomit

reading_rainbows's review against another edition

This book needs multiple content warnings:  Graphic sexual descriptions in intro and final chapter, eating disorders discussed throughout, body horror especially in chapter 2&3.  There is a content warning before the author specifically discussed their eating disorder, which is way too late. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Gore, Self harm, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

daniellekat's review

Loved the premise, but with each page I hate the author a little more. The writing is repetitive and Cowart takes every opportunity to use as many words as possible to state a point. This reminded me a lot of the writing of Caitlin Doughty (very "I'm quirky and witty so let me write a book") - not a good thing in my case, but if you're a fan of CD this might be for you. I did enjoy that this made me think about pain in ways I hadn't previously considered, but there is no way I get through another 150+ pages with Cowart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Child abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, and Self harm

vstarlight's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

francosteen's review

challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

Fascinating read and written in a fun, sometimes emotional, informative and obviously a personal, voice.

A look at masochism in so many different forms, where you can truly see that many of us engage with it in various ways ourselves.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Self harm, and Sexual content

theodenreads's review

challenging

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Self harm, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

This book is really informative and interesting, and there's probably so many more things that could be tagged as content warnings, but the ones I tagged are probably the most major ones. Although they're not all consistently touched on in the book, there are passages of this book that are very frank and honest in their discussions of self harm and eating disorders. Please use your best judgment when reading this, friends.

yilliun's review

DNF at 25%
I initially really enjoyed her writing, but as it progressed it felt somewhat juvenile to me. It was more technical than I was expecting in medical terms.

I mostly DNF’d this because of the graphic medical content. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Self harm, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content

lily1304's review

adventurous hopeful informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.75

I ripped through this book so fast. I loved it.
I was worried the author would be a little too flippant, but she is very clear from the outset that "pain on purpose" can be really healthy or unhealthy, and she devotes a chapter to exploring the difference.
My only complaint is that some of her chapters are a little too long, and I wish she had clear citations with a bibliography - but this is pop science, so she gives brief in-text citations.
Massive trigger warning for both BDSM and eating disorders - she gives extremely vivid descriptions of both.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

mateoj's review

adventurous challenging informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

just delightful — vulnerable, honest, informative, and funny. a difficult balance to strike in  journalistic nonfiction, but Hurts So Good does it very well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Drug use, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Excrement, and Medical trauma

meghan_is_reading's review

informative reflective medium-paced

*unhappy grumbles*

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Blood

Moderate: Eating disorder, Gore, Sexual content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Self harm and Vomit