Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

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

40 reviews

bookmuva's review

dark emotional funny hopeful informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Cancer, Chronic illness, Drug use, Miscarriage, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

lookingformybookmark's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal death, Miscarriage, Excrement, Dementia, Car accident, Abortion, and Pregnancy

nataliebootlah's review

dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

A stark memoir on what happens after death, straight from a mortician. 

The majority of people don’t really talk about what happens to their bodies after they die. It’s a bit taboo, isn’t it? That’s exactly Caitlin Doughty’s point. 

In this lively exploration of death, Doughty shares pointblank what happens in the crematories of the western world: how a body gets picked up, is stored in a fridge, cleaned, fluids removed, embalmed and perfected for presentation, then cremated. With dark humor, this book challenges our cultural aversion to morality and begs us to invite death into our door. By examining death rituals from around the world, both past and present, Doughty’s goal is to desensitize the average human from death. Thus, encouraging people to have more open and honest conversations about death and the wishes people and their loved ones have for after death. 

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes is an unflinchingly, honest read. It invites readers to embrace the inevitability of death, positivity change their relationship with mortality, and challenge the current widespread views of it. It definitely did so for me. But be aware, it is not for the faint of heart. 

Shout out to Walker for recommending this and letting me hold onto it for literal years. The recommendation sure did stand the test of time. Cheers who friends who read together (albeit at different times) and cheers to a good death!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Miscarriage and Suicide

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

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

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

nikenacs's review against another edition

funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.75

I picked this up not thinking much of it, both because I'd had a recent death in my family and because my local library was offering the e-book. And man, I'm so happy I read this. It took me a while to get into it, but when I did, I was INTO IT.

The ins and outs of the crematorium are interesting enough, but the true strength of this book is in its reflections on our society's attitude towards death. Absolutely 10/10 on that front. As someone who has had little to no contact with death in my personal life, this gave me a lot to think about. 

Very US-centric, which is not a bad thing, but instead made me very curious to research how the funeral industry works in Germany, and Western Europe in general. 

A tad superficial at times, oftentimes a chapter ended just when I felt like we were really getting into it. I appreciate that it combined more light-hearted personal memoir elements with philosophy and history as well as politics, but it could have been a tad more of the latter for my taste. 

But all in all, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this opened my eyes on how we treat both our dead and our dying.  Will be recommending, will be checking out more of Doughty's work. 

(And on a personal note, I knew I was right when I wanted to set up my testament and funeral wishes when I was in elementary school! Take that, parents.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Cancer, Fatphobia, Terminal illness, Violence, and Cannibalism

Minor: Addiction, Miscarriage, and Abortion

finnickdeservedbetter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Themes

• Death and mortality
• Death positivity and death plans
• The American/western Death industry
• Confronting the fear of death
• Death practices

My Thoughts:
Baby's (23yo's) first memior!

I was already familiar with Caitlin prior to reading this. Both through her YouTube videos and having read her other two novels.

Favourite Quote:

“Through the thick fog, I coyld barely make out a sign above the road: cemetery, 1 mile. I strode up the hill, walking straight down the center of the road with big, bild steps—bigger and bolder than my cardiovascular health should have allowed for."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

Minor: Miscarriage, Blood, Medical content, and Death of parent

harrimyers's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

currently placed at 4.25 but definitely could move to 4.5. a very good, concise overview of both the american death industry, but also how the western world views death in general. the formatting was brilliant and this book has taught me so much about the death industry that i either hadn’t even stopped to consider or hadn’t known at all. it was a very interesting look at how the death industry in america has directly warped people’s views of death and their relationships with their own mortality. doughty’s personal experiences are fascinating, if slightly… concerning at times. her stories from the crematorium were the most engaging part of this book and how the author links these to her past childhood experiences with death and to philosophical and cultural views of death was highly impressive. at times, the tone felt a little too… casual? but i suppose that part of this comes down to doughty’s mission to demistify death and part because this book was made to be engaging to read. however, with this in mind, there was a few instances where this casual tone did do a disservice to her argument, especially in regards to the size of the corpses and her brief dip into her run of the bdsm scene in hawaii. overall, this book was definitely thought provoking and has definitely demistifyed a lot about death for me (coming from someone who often already considers death to be an important thing to be conscious about) as well as making me stop and think very carefully about what i want to happen to me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, and Car accident

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Colonisation

alicroz34's review

dark funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

This book is full of really excellent, extremely dark information. It does, however, very much read like someone's first book. It hits its stride after the first quarter or so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Medical content, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction, Miscarriage, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Dementia, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexism