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djrylo's review
4.0
Paul Kalanithi truly is a Renaissance man.
The story of his youth (in the first half) highlights Paul's unbound curiosity to learn about life and the best ways to live it, a journey that many embark on but few complete. Fueled by a voracious appetite for literature as a boy; philosophy and writing as a young man; and finally, the intersection of life, death, and the practice of medicine as an adult, Paul chooses to pursue the fullest life he deems possible — becoming a neurosurgeon.
Kalanithi's voice can be heard with a startling amount of visual clarity as he describes the "unzipping" of his patients' skin, opening up of their skull, and the exacting swiftness of his scalpel inside the brain.
Kalanithi wrote When Breath Becomes Air so well that, at times, it feels as if the reader becomes the surgeon who is peering into the mind of another, equipped with the same tools as Paul but with no chance of mastering them as well as he.
The text interweaves Kalanithi's personal, social, and intellectual pursuits, but most importantly, it outlines how Paul came to fully embrace his life in the face of his own death.
The story of his youth (in the first half) highlights Paul's unbound curiosity to learn about life and the best ways to live it, a journey that many embark on but few complete. Fueled by a voracious appetite for literature as a boy; philosophy and writing as a young man; and finally, the intersection of life, death, and the practice of medicine as an adult, Paul chooses to pursue the fullest life he deems possible — becoming a neurosurgeon.
Kalanithi's voice can be heard with a startling amount of visual clarity as he describes the "unzipping" of his patients' skin, opening up of their skull, and the exacting swiftness of his scalpel inside the brain.
Kalanithi wrote When Breath Becomes Air so well that, at times, it feels as if the reader becomes the surgeon who is peering into the mind of another, equipped with the same tools as Paul but with no chance of mastering them as well as he.
The text interweaves Kalanithi's personal, social, and intellectual pursuits, but most importantly, it outlines how Paul came to fully embrace his life in the face of his own death.
violetness's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.5
bexlrose's review
3.0
An amazing, brave, beautiful man but.......I don't necessarily understand the hype about this book. It was good, and he had a sad story that he lived corageously, which he wrote well...but I didn't find anything more than that in it.
Maybe it's because I've never struggled with the question of my own existence and I've never thought too deeply about whether or not life has meaning as I simply believe that it doesn't. This belief doesn't make me sad and I don't feel the need to search for meaning. I think you get a life and you live it as best you can and try to be happy. That's all, when you die, there's nothing. I guess this means that I'm not the target audience for this book? Death makes me sad. This book made me sad. 3 stars.
Maybe it's because I've never struggled with the question of my own existence and I've never thought too deeply about whether or not life has meaning as I simply believe that it doesn't. This belief doesn't make me sad and I don't feel the need to search for meaning. I think you get a life and you live it as best you can and try to be happy. That's all, when you die, there's nothing. I guess this means that I'm not the target audience for this book? Death makes me sad. This book made me sad. 3 stars.
rodrigopramos's review
4.0
"Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable. Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue."
unexpectedbookish's review
5.0
This book was actually recommended to me by my friend. This was an emotional read. It gets me thinking about how we should encounter death. We can choose to live our lives to the fullest before death hits us eventually or we can linger in sadness and give up on living before it hits us. Death is unavoidable, inevitable and we moan and bereave for our family's deaths. However, through reading this book, I realise that death does not snatch away your love and your memories, time spent with them and this is what makes lives worth living even after death.
iloveevelynhugo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Such a great book. Truly. I loved the perspective on religion and death. I loved how we saw the perspective of a man with a terminal illness and a woman dealing with loving someone with a terminal illness. I didn’t get as much of a message out of it as I thought I would, probably because I am so detached from it, but it did remind me to live every single day how I want because you never know what the next day brings.