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beckyyreadss's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
4.0
I wanted to read this book because I loved Adam Kay’s book, Twas the Nightshift before Christmas, when this book was announced in 2020, I was dying to read it. Yes, it took me three years - I was hoping for the Paperback version, but it kept getting pushed back and I was getting impatient, so I finally order the Hardback version.
This book has 109 stories from different celebrities including Lee Child, Stanley Tucci, Trevor McDonald and Jack Whitehall. This book is about the National Health Services aka the NHS, and it is our single greatest achievement as a country. No matter who you are, no matter what is your health needs and no matter how much money you have, the NHS is there for you. In this book 109 people have come together to share their stories of how the NHS has been there for them and changed their lives in the process. These stories are a love letter to the NHS and the 1.4 million people who go above and beyond the call of duty every single day.
This book was created during the pandemic. The short story makes a total of 500 pages all from poems to health scares they have and health scares their families had. As someone who had a member of my family in hospital with COVID and had a underlying health condition it was a very scary time. All of these short stories are anywhere from a page to ten pages long to say thanks to NHS.
I am glad I didn’t read this during lockdown because I think it would have been too much obviously with the mentions of COVID-19, mental health and death. There were some sad and heartfelt stories but then there were also stories about bringing life into the world and how friendly the NHS can be.
I missed Adam’s commentary during this book, and he didn’t even have a chapter, but overall, this book makes me proud to be British.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Blood
Moderate: Terminal illness, Gore, Medical content, and Medical trauma
questingnotcoasting's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
4.0
This is a collection of thank you notes to the NHS written by famous writers, actors, musicians, comedians and TV personalities. Most of the contributions are memoir style essays but there are also a few poems and pieces of fiction. Some were funny, some moving and some simply focused on gratitude. I felt like some contributions were considerably weaker than others and there were a few single impersonal paragraphs which didn't seem to add much to the collection, but then that is the nature of anthologies. Some of the writing is really brilliant and my favourites were the more personal, touching stories. The overall message isn't groundbreaking - the NHS is essential and undervalued and in an ideal world it wouldn't require an celebrity anthology to make that point but generally I thought it was well worth the read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Gore, and Terminal illness
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