Reviews with content warning for Cancer - When Breath Becomes Air

Wow. I will be thinking about this one for a long time. What a gift Paul left us in his words. This book is sad, and it made me a little tense at times, but the reflection that it is causing in me is so so valuable. What makes a life meaningful? How do we or should we live? How does death's inevitability shape our living? What is most important? Some of the questions that I am ruminating on as I think over this one. I would caution you that you need to have the (mental) capacity to handle some intense, sad emotions when going into this one, but it is such a worthy book to read.

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

meditative and powerful, when breath becomes air journeys kalanithi's confrontation with his own close mortality, bringing to ironic physical fruition his lifelong reflection on life and death.

detailing his time in med school, the subsequent residency, and his diagnosis and treatment, kalanithi weaves the tale of a man in the unwanted yet unique position of being both a doctor and a patient, providing a rare POV of being on both sides of medical care. the memoir is seeped w/ an undercurrent of calm and mulling, all held tgt by kalanithi's poignant writing. im v glad that he's written and left this book as part of his legacy.

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