Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

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

55 reviews

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

leweylibrary's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

I really, really want to give this 5 stars solely because of how much I enjoyed it and learned from it that I'm going to think about for a long time to come. But there were just a few parts that didn't age well and read as a bit offensive, so those sat funny with me.

Overall this book is a lot of morbid, informative fun! I feel like it's made me think about death and dying in an entirely different way--I already caught myself while watching the new Hunger Games prequel thinking about the dead bodies of the fallen tributes and how decomposed they must have been lol. It also connected some dots for me about past experiences concerning death. I had always thought I was uncomfortable with the first funeral I ever went to just because it was my first funeral, but I think I really was uncomfortable with the unnatural-ness of that funeral, how my great aunt didn't look like her anymore and she didn't look...dead enough to be dead.

I really want an updated version of this book--surely there are more "green" burial options now 10 years later? I also went ahead and put holds on all of the author's other books. Not only do I love the subject matter she focuses on, but I love her writing. She reminds me of Jenny Lawson with how deep and personal she can get but then also crack a weird, inappropriate joke in the next breath lol. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Mental illness and Dementia

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, and Terminal illness

charlottedow's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Not for the faint of heart (or stomach) but an incredible exploration of the death industry in America and the concept of death positivity. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Grief

maggies's review against another edition

dark funny informative fast-paced

3.0

Really really really heed the content warning at the start of the book. Doughty can be very flippant in her descriptions, and while I understand this to be part of her overall goal of demystifying the death industry, it was at times shocking. I learned a lot, but it was all probably stuff I didn't feel a particular need to learn, so take from that what you will. She is a very entertaining writer, despite the subject matter (or perhaps because of it?)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Death of parent, and Murder

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

nekoshka's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Body horror and Suicidal thoughts

vanesst's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, and Car accident

pixelpigeon's review

challenging dark funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I've never noticed a lot of our cultural deeply-held beliefs about death, and never thought to challenge them. This book was like stretching a sore muscle. It felt good to lean into the discomfort.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Cancer

belichan's review

funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, and Death

gracewiley's review

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, and Medical content