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juushikaTitle: I'm Glad My Mom Died
Author: Jennette McCurdy
Narrator: Jennette McCurdy
Published: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 496,050
Text Number: 1769
Read Because: reviewed byrachelmanija, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Short and punchy, although the numbered (again, very short) chapters read awkwardly on audio. I admire the effort to write from within the moment, not retrospectively, and what it has to say about McCurdy's changing relationship with and awareness of her mother's abuse.
Title: Wonder Drug: The Secret History of Thalidomide in America and Its Hidden Victims
Author: Jennifer Vanderbes
Narrator: Jennifer Vanderbes
Published: Random House Audio, 2023
Rating: 4of 5
Page Count: 430
Total Page Count: 496,480
Text Number: 1770
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The audio narration is pretty awful, with distracting, strange pauses and emphasis. The text itself is fine: A thorough and intentionally balanced history of the drug Thalidomide, aiming to look beyond the dominant American narrative of the drug's failure to receive FDA approval, and willing to identify Thalidomide as example of systemic issues in drug testing/distribution rather than a one-off catastrophe.
Title: The Facemaker
Author: Lindsey Fitzharris
Narrator: Daniel Gillies
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2022
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 498,055
Text Number: 1774
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County library
Review:Charming! Which feels like an horrible way to characterize a book about facial reconstruction surgery in the wake of WWI, but the gruesome details are evocative and unflinching without being gratuitous, and Harold Gillies seems like a genuinely well-intentioned man who did meaningful work. Not uncomplicated work, and the author acknowledges the complicated social role of plastic surgery, particular as it intersects (gendered and racialized) beauty standards. But getting to the sex reassignment surgery bit in the tail end feels like the cherry on top: Gillies developed surgical methods to address needs of his patients, taking his patients at face (ha) value re: their needs. It's a relief to read historical nonfictional with a biographical focus where the biographical subject isn't outright awful.
Author: Jennette McCurdy
Narrator: Jennette McCurdy
Published: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 496,050
Text Number: 1769
Read Because: reviewed by
rachelmanija, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Short and punchy, although the numbered (again, very short) chapters read awkwardly on audio. I admire the effort to write from within the moment, not retrospectively, and what it has to say about McCurdy's changing relationship with and awareness of her mother's abuse.
Title: Wonder Drug: The Secret History of Thalidomide in America and Its Hidden Victims
Author: Jennifer Vanderbes
Narrator: Jennifer Vanderbes
Published: Random House Audio, 2023
Rating: 4of 5
Page Count: 430
Total Page Count: 496,480
Text Number: 1770
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The audio narration is pretty awful, with distracting, strange pauses and emphasis. The text itself is fine: A thorough and intentionally balanced history of the drug Thalidomide, aiming to look beyond the dominant American narrative of the drug's failure to receive FDA approval, and willing to identify Thalidomide as example of systemic issues in drug testing/distribution rather than a one-off catastrophe.
Title: The Facemaker
Author: Lindsey Fitzharris
Narrator: Daniel Gillies
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2022
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 498,055
Text Number: 1774
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County library
Review:Charming! Which feels like an horrible way to characterize a book about facial reconstruction surgery in the wake of WWI, but the gruesome details are evocative and unflinching without being gratuitous, and Harold Gillies seems like a genuinely well-intentioned man who did meaningful work. Not uncomplicated work, and the author acknowledges the complicated social role of plastic surgery, particular as it intersects (gendered and racialized) beauty standards. But getting to the sex reassignment surgery bit in the tail end feels like the cherry on top: Gillies developed surgical methods to address needs of his patients, taking his patients at face (ha) value re: their needs. It's a relief to read historical nonfictional with a biographical focus where the biographical subject isn't outright awful.
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Date: 2023-12-30 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 01:37 am (UTC)