A compassionate but excessively slow cancer story.
Mills’ (The Parts That Followed, 2014, etc.) third novel uses four interweaving narratives to tell the story of mysterious medical malpractice at Kendal Slate Memorial Hospital.
Dale Reichter’s beloved wife, Cindy, suddenly develops an aggressive form of cancer after a routine hysterectomy at Kendal Slate. She dies within months of the surgery, leaving Dale devastated and suspicious of the hospital staff. Meanwhile, Emma Speck suffers from a fibroid that doctors insist is benign, but she also undergoes a straightforward hysterectomy when the fibroid becomes painful, only to develop cancerous symptoms similar to Cindy’s that she and her husband, Russell, must face together. Addison and Keith have been trying to start a family, but after multiple miscarriages, a life-threatening pregnancy, and an endometriosis diagnosis, Addison plans to have a hysterectomy that will stop her pain, even though it will also end her ability to conceive. At the same time, Dr. Richard Oakley, the chair of the surgical department at Kendal Slate, handles complaints from his patients with little sensitivity while ignoring his own mounting problems at home. All parties individually begin to investigate these routine surgeries gone horribly wrong and discover that the cancer is the result of a common surgical technique called morcellation, which breaks up growths into small pieces, which then develop into aggressive leiomyosarcoma tumors. All four lives intertwine as they find common ground in their personal battles against this alarming discovery. Mills offers an empathetic and engaging medical novel that’s deeply rooted in its characters and their experiences, illustrating the ways in which cancer can break apart but also unite families. Its focus on women, and women’s health in particular, is a crucial centerpiece. In Richard, the author successfully develops a jaded and despicable villain, counterbalancing him with the loving personae of Dale, Emma, and Addison. However, the novel could be perhaps 100 pages shorter, as all four storylines feel unnecessarily long. The lengthy individual narratives often cause the plot to lack forward movement for chapters at a time, creating an overall effect of drawn-out tedium.
A compassionate but excessively slow cancer story.Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Universal Mysteries
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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