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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I enjoyed this best, as I do all of Rachel Clarke's work, when she is clear-eyed and indignant. The epilogue was my favourite part of this book, as it was with Dear Life. Her writing style is brilliant, but her tendency to mawkishness sometimes leaves me frustrated. I was also in and out of hospitals from February to May 2020 as my father died. Some of the issues she raised rang incredibly true for me, and I appreciated the inclusion of a couple of stories where the collective spirit / 'amazing NHS workers' fell short and left people, usually the older and vulnerable members of society, completely abandoned. My father was one of them. I love Rachel Clarke's kindness, compassion, intelligence and people-centric approach to palliative care. I will always buy her books and hope she keeps writing. Perhaps the issues raised in this book still feel too raw and dark in my mind, that the hyperbole and absolutism is not quite right for me. We all bring our own things to these stories. But at the end of the day, I would ALWAYS recommend Rachel Clarke to other people and am so glad she tells these important stories.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book is Breath taking. An insight into what our nhs staff had/still endure on a daily basis during covid. A first hand experience from March 2020 to August 2020 by a doctor working in a hospital dealing with the daily battles with covid. The lack of PPE, the lack of political leadership, failing to protect our elderly, disabled and people suffering from other illnesses . The harsh truth, laid bare. It is a hard, insightful read, one which we should all take the time to read.
“I never wanted Red Arrows, medals or minutes of silence. Like my colleagues, my needs were more prosaic. Really, I just wanted honesty from those who rule us, sufficient Covid testing and fit-for-purpose PPE. The irony, after all, could not have been lost on Boris Johnson that the one thing Hollywood scriptwriters reliably award their superheroes is, at least, a mask and a cape?”
Let me just caveat this review by saying I’m not going to ‘recommend’ this book per se. It’s too raw and has too much potential to be very triggering, but it is incredibly, incredibly moving. And it is hard to articulate its importance in a review. I will, however, say that her book ‘Your Life In My Hands’ should be compulsory reading for everyone who’s ever used the NHS (and although it is still devastatingly relevant, it doesn’t feel so as much like it is picking at wounds that haven’t quite healed, if you get what I’m saying).
If I had to describe it in one word, I would probably say ‘tender’. It’s a poignant and achingly loving memoir of NHS staff, patients, and family members, in the midst of a pandemic. Rachel Clarke knows how to use words perfectly - as she says, ‘When drugs run dry, when cure is no longer an option, I deal in words like my patients’ lives depend on it’. She oscillates between literary intimacy and journalistic detachment: at once personal and political, despairingly angry and profoundly grateful. It captures the turmoil of a workforce so selflessly dedicated to saving lives yet so drastically under-funded and under-equipped; what it means to hold onto hope even in the absence of all evidence to the contrary; and, tremendously, the impact of a few minuscule acts of kindness. No matter who you are and how you have been impacted by the pandemic, I feel like this book understands. It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘touching’, despite covid’s best efforts to take this from us.
Let me just caveat this review by saying I’m not going to ‘recommend’ this book per se. It’s too raw and has too much potential to be very triggering, but it is incredibly, incredibly moving. And it is hard to articulate its importance in a review. I will, however, say that her book ‘Your Life In My Hands’ should be compulsory reading for everyone who’s ever used the NHS (and although it is still devastatingly relevant, it doesn’t feel so as much like it is picking at wounds that haven’t quite healed, if you get what I’m saying).
If I had to describe it in one word, I would probably say ‘tender’. It’s a poignant and achingly loving memoir of NHS staff, patients, and family members, in the midst of a pandemic. Rachel Clarke knows how to use words perfectly - as she says, ‘When drugs run dry, when cure is no longer an option, I deal in words like my patients’ lives depend on it’. She oscillates between literary intimacy and journalistic detachment: at once personal and political, despairingly angry and profoundly grateful. It captures the turmoil of a workforce so selflessly dedicated to saving lives yet so drastically under-funded and under-equipped; what it means to hold onto hope even in the absence of all evidence to the contrary; and, tremendously, the impact of a few minuscule acts of kindness. No matter who you are and how you have been impacted by the pandemic, I feel like this book understands. It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘touching’, despite covid’s best efforts to take this from us.
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
This evoked all the anxiety I had at the beginning of the pandemic, and made me desperate furious again at how badly the UK government failed us.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content
Moderate: Death
Covid 19
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
I opted not to rate this book because I don't consider that fair. I do however believe that everyone should read this book or at least pay attention to what Rachel Clarke has to say. She managed to extract and depict the humanity in Britain during a period in which people became numbers while also highlighting the failures of the government and the intense struggles that the NHS staff experienced as a result of Covid-19.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced