SPEND YOUR HEART

A young woman doctor meets a few ego-destroying problems on her first assignment as a medical missionary in pre-war China and nearly gives up to go home when an appropriate crisis occurs just in time to change her mind. She rises, of course, to the challenge and stays to fight on. The formula plot might be forgiven if there were other merits. There are none. Characters emerge lifelessly, the Americans are shrouded in a veil of evasion too reminiscent of those tactful descriptions that register us in personnel files; the Chinese personalities are without distinction except by name -- or worse -- by Anglicized nickname. The authors use medical terminology without explaining it. The story is too dated to be missionary propaganda; the love-interest is too slight to be appealing; the theme too ordinary to carry a message of faith. Rather, it is like an ill-remembered personal experience, grown pallid in time and doctored with romance.