Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham

13 reviews

unsuccessfulbookclub's review

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

5.0

I have never even considered what happens in a nuclear reactor nor had I thought much about Soviet politics or the Chernobyl disaster and | feel like | have taken a well-taught graduate level course on all of those things now. This book was riveting. I listened to quite a bit of it - the audio had a wonderful narrator (Jacques Roy) 

If you like apocalyptic science fiction, you will like this. 
Higginbotham puts so much humanity in the story of atomic disaster and political maneuvering giving this beefy nonfiction intense plot points to pull you through the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Chronic illness, Suicide, Cancer, Medical content, and Suicide attempt

jowestendorf's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, and Chronic illness

bessadams's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Terminal illness, and Death

Moderate: Chronic illness, Infertility, and Suicide

hannah_et1982's review

challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

No matter how much I learn about Chernobyl, there is always more to discover. The audiobook narrator did a wonderful job and it was incredibly interesting to listen to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, and Death

jhbandcats's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

What a riveting, horrifying book. The whole time I was reading the first half, I was tense thinking “Don’t do that!” or “Get out of there!” or “You stupid, stupid idiot!” I knew what was going to happen even if the people at Chernobyl didn’t. 

I remember when the reactor at Chernobyl exploded but I never knew details. Physics and engineering are another, alien world to me so I didn’t even try to learn about it. (The same with Fukushima - I was shocked and saddened but never read further.) 

This book explains things in layman’s terms, still beyond my English major’s comprehension, but I was at least able to get the gist of it. And I found it fascinating. The author takes a complex, often tedious, topic and brings it to life with details of what exactly happened and to whom. Much of what is in the book was hidden in Soviet archives and only came to light after the breakup of the USSR. 

This is an amazing look at the worst nuclear disaster ever, where millions of people across Europe had their lives and livelihoods upended at best. Officially only 31 people died as a result of the accident but we know the toll is far higher with the early onset of cancers. 

I’ve been telling friends about this book for days. I hope they read it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Animal death, Cancer, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

thebearnest's review

dark informative tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Chronic illness, Medical content, Alcohol, Cancer, and Terminal illness

mscalls's review

challenging dark informative reflective tense fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Terminal illness

corvidaeus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Chronic illness, Death, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, and Alcohol

zalouis's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Cancer, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Terminal illness

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Infertility, and War

readerette's review

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

Sometimes there are pages devoted to a few seconds of time, but it works very well for the story of Chernobyl because significant events happened in the blink of an eye, and thousands of lives were changed (and in many cases and many ways, over) because of the events. Not an easy read, but so helpful in contextualizing what happened and how we can each watch for similar warning signs in the (hopefully less potentially catastrophic) choices we come across in our own lives.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Grief and Animal death

Minor: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Cursing