Reviews with content warning for Infertility - When Breath Becomes Air

I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down. It's hopefully heartbreaking. One of the themes that kept coming up that I resonated with is the way the healthcare system dulls the empathy of it's professionals. How it's easier to disconnect into the statistics and turn the patient into another number. I found his philosophy on medicine fascinating.

Our culture doesn't like to discuss death but this does in such a thoughtful way. It's real and honest. But it's also about living. And how living and dying are connected. Living with the knowledge you are dying.

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sabrinas's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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theverycraftyvegan's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

I cannot stress this enough, if you’re reading/listening to this book be fully prepared to cry. A friend recommended I not listen to this audiobook while driving because I would need to pull over and cry. I heeded that advice and I listened at home—alone—and I openly wept.

Paul’s words were very clinical at times but never cold or without emotion. This was his life’s story about his education, career, and personal life but most importantly it’s about how he continued to live even though he knew he was dying.

Lucy’s epilogue absolutely wrecked me.

Paul: ”I’m ready.”

Lucy: “I climbed into the last bed we’d share.”

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charlotte_helen's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

What a beautifully written book. I listened to this via audiobook and found it very emotional and reflective especially

the fact that Paul, the author, dies before he is able to complete both his training and his book, which is then completed by his wife in the epilogue

. I enjoyed the rawness of this book and the memories and how it portrays the ups and downs of life even through terminal illness.

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flamingtashhh's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

2.0

I thought this was way overhyped. Summary: guy tries to get as close to death as possible, achieves this goal. Dies.

In seriousness, I didn’t like the author at all. I cried at the end because of course death is terrible, but this was out of no love for him. He seemed to have a lot of self-importance that was tied to his work. I’m very grateful for medicine, but this kind of arrogance- that which declares medical treatment to be the greatest of all treatment, or at least doctors the best givers of care there are- is dangerous and absurd. It’s like if Jack from Lost wrote a book. I know plenty of people like this author, and none of them are happy and I wouldn’t take seriously any philosophical treatises of theirs, either.

And I’m not going to make a habit of picking apart the prose of a man writing through his last year, so I have nothing to say about the writing itself.

I actually liked the epilogue a lot, written by the author’s wife. She says there’s a lot he didn’t convey about himself and his values in the book, and honestly I really appreciated that. Her notes, and the pain and hurt in them, really gave another dimension to what would have otherwise been an uninteresting read.

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enbybooklove's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

The book is excellent and should be required reading for every human. The author himself came across as a little arrogant and I wish his workaholism had been acknowledged, but it is still an entirely necessary book.

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