Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

108 reviews

cherie17's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Medical content, and Death

333amreen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

VERY INSIGHTFUL!!! not just into a doctor's life and their relationship with their patients & their confrontation with life and death everyday! But also, into HIS life, Paul's beautiful life & his philosophies that were astounding. Overall, an emotional ride, especially the latter part!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Death of parent, Medical content, Eating disorder, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

garyosu's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Vomit, Death, Grief, Medical content, Cancer, and Death of parent

guinness74's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I think this book’s importance might be understated. Kalanithi’s life and death (I really don’t think that’s a spoiler at this point) are the focal point, but it’s his observance of death and how to go about it from both the perspective of doctor and patient that are the most valuable in this book. That’s not to say it isn’t emotional and, at times, hard to read…it is. But, it is a sort of blueprint of the process of dying and having a life experience worth sharing on the way out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Vomit, Terminal illness, and Death

brecklyn's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is outside of my normal genre, but I really enjoyed his reflections on life, and philosophy and his perspective on death. I did not find it too sad, but it was definitely moving and poignant. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Grief, Medical content, Cancer, and Death

Minor: Cancer and Death

aploinard's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Cancer, and Death

jchudson's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Medical content, Death, Terminal illness, and Cancer

cynzar's review against another edition

emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

5.0

5 STARS🎧💕

PART 1:
Gave me literal goosebumps. Love that it humanized the experience of death from a doctor's POV for me. I always thought it was just one of those things for them (as time went on) and although that was proven to be somewhat true, I got to really understand it better when hearing it from an actual medical professional.

PART 2: 
Broke my fragile little heart. This book feeling and being soo incomplete (because even though Paul had done so much for a man his age, it didn't feel like there was enough because he didn't have time to expand further on his past experiences and had he not been ill, would've experienced and done much more so he could eventually share it), and knowing that it was because of the reality of him facing his mortality and how it so clearly shone light on the reality and predictable (we're all going to die) unpredictability (we don't really know when, even in the face of a terminal diagnosis) of death just broke me.
We always think we have time and what a gut-wrenching reminder that we just really don't.

I want to, but conversely never want to read anything like this again (and will swiftly be getting a physical copy of this book for when I'm ready to face it again).

This was utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful (when I tell you that I cried like the author was my loved one?!)😭🤞🏽.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Terminal illness

greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Medical content, Pregnancy, Grief, and Vomit

bookish_bry's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Wow... this book really got to me. It's written very well and punches you in the gut. Paul's self-reflection at the end of his life hits hard. It was a hard book to get through, but it was very, very good. Don't read if you are not in the right emotional state. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Cancer, Death, Grief, and Medical content

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Pregnancy

Paul is a doctor and described his medical training somewhat explicitly when talking about dissecting cadavers.