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rosalind's review
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Death, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Medical trauma, Sexual harassment, and Blood
Minor: Suicide attempt and Adult/minor relationship
michellehogmire's review
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thanks to Graywolf for an advance copy of this title, which came out on May 18, 2021. I'm writing this review voluntarily.
Shew, I'm glad I started reading this book after my partner finished their doctoral thesis: otherwise, I probably would have had to put this one down. Nervous System is a simultaneously beautiful and brutal book about Ella--a young astrophysicist from an oppressive country, who's struggling to finish her dissertation. Her husband has recently experienced a traumatic workplace injury, and her father thinks she's already a doctor. Her dad has also tanked his entire life savings into Ella's education, but the rest of her family doesn't know this.
Out of frustration, Ella wishes that she would develop an illness--that way, she could drop her teaching responsibilities and finish her writing while on bed rest. And lo and behold: she gets sick. Her desperate desire for more time spins out into an anxious nightmare, with doctors attempting to figure out what's wrong with her. From here, the book tracks back into the past and eventually leaps forward to the future, chronicling the story of Ella and her family through the lens of sickness and injury.
Author Lina Meruane impressively details the way that illness and death bring a family together and rip them apart, through a hyper-focus on life-changing diagnoses and the impact on the physical body. In this sense, the title Nervous System, functions on multiple levels: as a literal aspect of the body, as the connected relationships of the family system, as a descriptor for how the medical system causes stress, etc. Meruane further indicates the complexity of sickness through a writing technique of listing multiple italicized terms in her sentences, as opposed to picking just one, heightening the novel's themes of multiplicity and linked systems. Nervous System is a great book, but certainly a difficult read, similar to another fantastic recent Graywolf title: The Discomfort of Evening. Maybe tackle this one when you're feeling particularly well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content
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