Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

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

14 reviews

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

cadence99's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.5

What I liked:
•the discussion of death practices in various cultures 
•the authors personal musings on how best to manage the image and processing of death

What I didn’t like:
•chapters feel a bit disjointed in their themes
•the repeated use of race as a descriptor for ONLY non-white people when it is irrelevant to the narrative of the story being told
•pretty gross anti-fat comments, primarily in one particular section where she talks about her coworker declaring that despite the medical examiners determination to the contrary, the person MUST have died of a heart attack from being so fat and “This is why you can’t be fat!”- in addition to describing in great detail how fat bodies smell worse, but then dismissing the coworkers comments as “just fact” (even though he is literally ignoring fact by assuming the mans cause of death is not the one determined by the examiners professional assessment)
• in the same scene as above, repeatedly bringing up how her coworkers continually mistakenly say the person is Mexican, despite him being Salvadoran 
•irrelevant added story where a coworker says they should fire bomb the city of San Francisco because it is a “hell pit”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

spookily's review

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use, Miscarriage, Violence, Dementia, War, and Classism

Minor: Fatphobia, Sexism, Excrement, Car accident, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

oliverreeds's review

dark funny slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Grief, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

samlikesbooks's review

dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug abuse and Dementia

gwendle_vs_literature's review

dark funny informative medium-paced

4.0

A few years ago I would not have made it through this book, but watching Caitlin’s “Ask a Mortician” on YouTube over the past few years prepared me for the honest and sometimes startling way she describes the realities of death. I really enjoyed this book, and I got through it pretty quickly because it was engaging and that made it hard to put down. I can’t recommend it for everyone, as some people might find the frank descriptions of decay and of what happens to bodies in contemporary North-American funeral practices too difficult to get through. In that case I would be more inclined to recommend her second book “From  Here to Eternity” which explores a variety of different cultural practices regarding death from all around the world. That one I can recommend to almost anyone. 

Accidental pairing that I now recommend:

I happened to read this immediately after finishing “As I Lay Dying” — which may seem like I was on a theme, but it was just a coincidental timing of wait lists at the library. However, if you want to compare a factual discussion of death and our rituals surrounding it (past and present) with a classic of American literature on that topic written and set in a time after more modern death “management” (ie embalming and/or quick burials) had taken firm root, but when poverty and a desire to honour the last wishes of the dead lead a family to ignore those conventions, then it’s a pairing I can recommend. Caitlin’s information certainly made Faulkner’s novel more interesting for me by providing extra layers of context. Particularly if you have to read Faulkner for an English class, pairing it with “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” could make it more enjoyable for you, and could also provide some good essay topics. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Death

Moderate: Child death, Suicide, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

ashleycmms's review

dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Cancer and Suicide

rtaire's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I love memoirs, but I was pleasantly surprised by how the author interweaves the science, history, and culture of death with her personal experiences. Her writing resonates with my own anxieties about death and points me in a direction of what I might want, where to research, and potentially how to ask for it. Now I want a "good death" and hopefully will learn more in her next book (and/or her YouTube channel).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Cannibalism, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction and Drug use

lexa's review against another edition

funny informative

4.25

I feel very mixed in this one. Parts were captivating, other parts I sped up the narration just to move it along. I laughed, I cried. Overall, I would read another book by this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Body shaming, Blood, and Car accident