Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

The Doctor by Annie Payne

1 review

yvo_about_books's review

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Finished reading: May 17th 2023
DNF at 36 % (138 pages)


"The hairs on the back of her neck were standing up, telling her something was wrong. But what?"

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Avon in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

Right... I was already afraid this was going to happen to be honest. There have been a lot of negative reviews about The Doctor since I requested a copy, and it kind of made me regret the decision to do so... Especially since the reviews all mentioned valid issues that would greatly bother me as well. Since I already had a copy hanging out on my kindle, I decided to just jump in with low expectations and try to make the best of the situation. Who knows, I might have another unpopular opinion popping up and actually love the story? But of course those kind of books are rarer to find than a talking unicorn.

I was initially pleasantly surprised, because the beginning of The Doctor wasn't all bad. The first chapter from the killer's POV makes for a great opening, and I was ready to sit down and enjoy this medical thriller. But the fact is: whatever The Doctor is, don't expect for anything exciting to happen or for it to focus on the actual crime. Instead, this story reads like one of those over the top medical drama series you see on TV, and not in a good way. The plot basically consists of telling us in great detail how the hospital is run, then strange stuff happening to the main character, but her thinking she is just paranoid and drinking yet ANOTHER glass of wine to end the day. Repeat that a kazillion times, and that was just about what I read in the first 36%. Could things have become better later on? Maybe, but considering I read quite a few reviews and they all complain about the same, I don't think so.

There was just something about the writing style and tone that simply didn't work for me at all. There was quite a lot of repetition, and I just never felt the suspense. I also hated that some of the chapters suddenly had a POV jump at the end to the killer's POV without any warning at all. I do normally love a good POV from the killer, but the tone was just way off and it made the killer almost sound immature. The pace was considerably slow as well, and I struggled to keep reading. Add the fact that the reviews promised that it was only getting worse and more over the top, and I decided that life was too short to continue reading a book I already knew would never work for me. DNF number five of the year it is! Oh well, we can't like them all... 
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