Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

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

17 reviews

just_jeffrey0597's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Very informative and leads to a thought provoking experience about death and dying in American society 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Cannibalism, Death, Grief, Death of parent, Child death, Dementia, Addiction, Drug use, and Drug abuse

cadence99's review against another edition

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

indieandajean's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

I'm a massive fan of Caitlin Doughty and the work she is doing through the Order of the Good Death to change the American perspective of death and mourning from our modern moment of hiding and sanitizing death towards a more traditional mourning ritual of home funerals and natural primarily non-embalmed means of body disposal. I'd read her other two books, but had yet to read this one because I was concerned that as her debut publication, it wouldn't contain her strong narrative voice and nonchalance about the details of death.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was untrue and that this book was not only extremely well written, but was the key to understanding why Caitlin's death fascination began and how she used her experiences to start the order. This book is a fantastic piece of memoir, and it is also a great place for the uninitiated to start when learning more about the good death and the ways in which we can begin to challenge the funeral industry as it exists today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Child death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Medical trauma, Death of parent, Child death, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Addiction, Car accident, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Murder, Mental illness, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gore, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, Chronic illness, and Cancer

Minor: Animal death

spookily's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

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

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

ssarahbbeth's review against another edition

dark funny informative reflective fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Drug use, Terminal illness, Cursing, Blood, Cancer, Chronic illness, Miscarriage, Dementia, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

maddiearthur's review

dark funny hopeful inspiring reflective

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, and Medical content

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Dementia, and Car accident

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Child death, Suicide, Car accident, Cannibalism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Gore

Moderate: Mental illness, Dementia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Drug use, Racism, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Cursing, Cancer, Colonisation, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, and Sexism

CW: mention of JKR

12dejamoo's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

Touching, funny, serious when it needed to be. Just such a delight to read, and definitely provided some food for thought. This review is highly cliche but the book is good

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Child death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt

Minor: Suicide, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Yes there are icky descriptions of dead bodies but it's not really done for shock value, just to tell stories and make observations. The tone is also very light so mostly it doesn't feel too agh

clarathromycin's review against another edition

challenging dark funny hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Suicide

Moderate: Dementia, Sexism, Cannibalism, Cultural appropriation, and Drug use

Minor: Sexual harassment

erica_reads_things's review against another edition

dark funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Very intriguing, well written book. Pretty graphic but not for shock value. Caitlin writes about death and the things that she saw working in a crematory in a very matter of fact way that made it so interesting to learn about. Weaving in historical pieces on death practices in different cultures and throughout history was fascinating too. 

There was a pretty abrupt and random chapter with some, in my opinion, unnecessary fatphobic themes, but other than that I really enjoyed the process of reading this book and thinking about death myself. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cancer, Suicide, Body horror, Death of parent, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Child death, Cannibalism, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Fatphobia, and Drug use