A convincing if occasionally tedious case against LASIK eye surgery.
Waxler indicts the popular vision-correction procedure.
In these pages, the author sounds the alarm about LASIK eye surgery, a procedure that uses a laser to reshape the cornea and eliminate the need for glasses used to see at a distance. In the U.S. alone, hundreds of thousands of people get LASIK surgery every year. Waxler lays out the massive drawbacks that are often downplayed by the doctors performing the procedure. Per the author, a condition called corneal neuropathic pain frequently results, caused by the way LASIK shaves and thins the cornea and leaves behind scar tissue. Waxler carefully explains the biology involved, noting, for instance, that in dim light the pupil dilates, which isn’t a problem in a healthy eye, where the cornea is curved, but it becomes increasingly troublesome when the cornea has been reshaped to focus light directly on the retina. Referencing an extensive series of professional studies, the author elaborates on how the procedure can lead to severe headaches, render the cornea painfully sensitive to various things (including light, dust, and even blinking), and ultimately prove ineffective, since roughly half the patients who undergo it regress to pre-surgery vision levels (or worse) within seven years. Waxler includes testimonies and case studies documenting dozens of people who’ve had the surgery and experienced some or all of these side effects, including the famous golfer Tiger Woods, who had the surgery in 1999 and experienced painful regression eight years later. These case studies and personal accounts, along with detailed source documentation, make up the bulk of Waxler’s book, which is authoritative but not particularly engaging. For long stretches, the text reads like a dossier prepared for a class-action attorney, which is a shame, since Waxler’s knowledge and passion are evident throughout. His main target is LASIK, but he stresses that his call is broader: “Just say no to all ‘vision correction’ surgery on healthy eyes,” he urges his readers. “Surgery on healthy eyes makes them sick, forever. Any benefits are merely temporary.”
A convincing if occasionally tedious case against LASIK eye surgery.Pub Date: July 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798332944178
Page Count: 291
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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