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jrmarr's review against another edition
4.0
Krasnostein has the most beautiful way of describing people, places, and her own reactions to them. I love how she weaves in and out of stories, sprinkling bits of her own reflections and history to deepen our understanding of the moment. While some parts of this book are less interesting than others, the parts that are good are heartbreakingly, beautifully written.
gabrielle_erin's review
3.0
Krasnostein always delivers on the peculiar and the poignant. My favourite slice of life author.
brassbooks's review
2.0
I found this really hard to follow for the most part. Which I think did a disservice to the stories in the Below section of the book. Above was really hard to read, apart from the Halfway House story, but again was hard to follow because I struggled so much with the other two stories. I found it hard to persevere with this one, which is such a shame because I loved The Trauma Cleaner.
the_old_gray_cat's review against another edition
4.0
An engrossing book about a number of unusual people, including a death doula, a dying woman, a number of Mennonite missionaries in a rough part of New York City, UFO believers, and psychic investigators. I enjoyed reading this very much.
What stops this from being a 5 star read is that the author sprinkles in a little of her own personal history without filling in all the blanks -- I found myself paging back through the whole book trying to figure out the rest of one particular story only to realize she had referred to a trauma as if we the readers knew about it, when it had never been mentioned before. Also, the organization of the book, jumping from subject to subject, introducing new people and returning to some but not all of the subjects, got irritating as there really weren't unifying themes which justified this.
What stops this from being a 5 star read is that the author sprinkles in a little of her own personal history without filling in all the blanks -- I found myself paging back through the whole book trying to figure out the rest of one particular story only to realize she had referred to a trauma as if we the readers knew about it, when it had never been mentioned before. Also, the organization of the book, jumping from subject to subject, introducing new people and returning to some but not all of the subjects, got irritating as there really weren't unifying themes which justified this.
zasobel's review
4.0
I've been very slow getting off the mark with reading this year, but I'm glad I started with this one. I find that sometimes Krasnostein's sentences waffle eruditely, but just as often they skewer with such precision that I have to close the book for a bit. Her insights here are not particularly challenging (we are driven to different beliefs by common fears, so shouldn't we all try and get along a little more?), but still run the gamut from enjoyable to incredibly moving. I'm in my empathetic scepticism era so this was a great fit for me at this time in my life.
caseyxcat's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this book a lot but found myself less engaged with chapters that weren’t about the death doula. What an incredibly interesting life to read about.