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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Oh my god, the horror! I can't believe this is possible...
...that anyone, including a doctor thought it would be perfectly excusable for a high mucky muck doctor to come onto to a young female subordinate, including laying hands on her when she didn't want it (at least he apologized?). And then the young female subordinate can blame herself when her superior makes her job awkward for her because she didn't respond with sufficient tact when rejecting his unwanted advances.
Oh, and the best part, the happy ending for the heroine? She gets to ask said superior out for dinner at the end. Okay, said superior does end up helping to save her life, but still, the only real reason is that he looks good.
Wait, you thought I was horrified by Ebola? Maybe this wasn't the best book to read having recently read the memoirs/epidemiological stories of two real life virus hunters, but I'm not really scared of Ebola. It can do a lot of damage, but it doesn't spread very easily. In Outbreak is reasonably easy to contain, and in real life it's even considerably easier.
I was a little bit horrified that HMOs turned out to be good guys (or if not good guys, per se, than targeted victims on the bad guys).
Over all, though, the writing is amateurish, the heroine is poorly constructed, and I'm not just talking about her response to sexual harassment from her boss. Part of the problem is that Cook doesn't seem at all good at exposition. Blumenthal is supposed to be a topflight doctor - just getting into the EIS means she's good, and then she's the top of her EIS class (which doesn't really make sense if you know enough about the EIS, but whatever). However, she's the voice of the listener when it comes to a lot of the exposition, so she asks questions she really really ought to know (especially since she just put in some research time) and says some very basic things in a shocked tone about Ebola.
Really, shifts in tone make the characters all seem like manic depressives or something.
Then there's the part where she overlooks some pretty basic facts. Suspecting everyone she's met but not the person who she knows who is actually the guilty party, even though it's pretty obvious he's most likely to be connected.
If she really is smart (and she manages to uncover a thing or two, maybe by luck. But it takes some skill to survive, at least), then she spends a lot of time holding the idiot ball.
However, when it wasn't being actively annoying, it was an amusing fluffy read, and perhaps most importantly quick. I had a morbid curiosity, at least, about how it would end.
...that anyone, including a doctor thought it would be perfectly excusable for a high mucky muck doctor to come onto to a young female subordinate, including laying hands on her when she didn't want it (at least he apologized?). And then the young female subordinate can blame herself when her superior makes her job awkward for her because she didn't respond with sufficient tact when rejecting his unwanted advances.
Oh, and the best part, the happy ending for the heroine? She gets to ask said superior out for dinner at the end. Okay, said superior does end up helping to save her life, but still, the only real reason is that he looks good.
Wait, you thought I was horrified by Ebola? Maybe this wasn't the best book to read having recently read the memoirs/epidemiological stories of two real life virus hunters, but I'm not really scared of Ebola. It can do a lot of damage, but it doesn't spread very easily. In Outbreak is reasonably easy to contain, and in real life it's even considerably easier.
I was a little bit horrified that HMOs turned out to be good guys (or if not good guys, per se, than targeted victims on the bad guys).
Over all, though, the writing is amateurish, the heroine is poorly constructed, and I'm not just talking about her response to sexual harassment from her boss. Part of the problem is that Cook doesn't seem at all good at exposition. Blumenthal is supposed to be a topflight doctor - just getting into the EIS means she's good, and then she's the top of her EIS class (which doesn't really make sense if you know enough about the EIS, but whatever). However, she's the voice of the listener when it comes to a lot of the exposition, so she asks questions she really really ought to know (especially since she just put in some research time) and says some very basic things in a shocked tone about Ebola.
Really, shifts in tone make the characters all seem like manic depressives or something.
Then there's the part where she overlooks some pretty basic facts. Suspecting everyone she's met but not the person who she knows who is actually the guilty party, even though it's pretty obvious he's most likely to be connected.
If she really is smart (and she manages to uncover a thing or two, maybe by luck. But it takes some skill to survive, at least), then she spends a lot of time holding the idiot ball.
However, when it wasn't being actively annoying, it was an amusing fluffy read, and perhaps most importantly quick. I had a morbid curiosity, at least, about how it would end.
3 stars: fun, but a little cheesy.
I wasn't sure if this was going to hit too close to home with the current pandemic, but this was actually about a significantly different kind of outbreak. Dr. Marissa Blumenthal works for the CDC and ends up investigating what turns out to be unexplained outbreaks of Ebola, the most deadly virus known, in the US. This book was more thriller than medical, most of the novel followed Marissa's attempts to trace the source of the Ebola and her escapes from those who didn't want her to find out...some of the language and situations were a little cringey, but it was written in the '80s, so that's fair. I also saw the plot twist coming miles away, which is not a problem I usually have with mysteries.
Robin Cook seems to have written a LOT of medical thrillers, and since that's one of my favourite genres, I'll try a few of the more recent ones in hopes that they are a little more medical and less detective story.
I wasn't sure if this was going to hit too close to home with the current pandemic, but this was actually about a significantly different kind of outbreak. Dr. Marissa Blumenthal works for the CDC and ends up investigating what turns out to be unexplained outbreaks of Ebola, the most deadly virus known, in the US. This book was more thriller than medical, most of the novel followed Marissa's attempts to trace the source of the Ebola and her escapes from those who didn't want her to find out...some of the language and situations were a little cringey, but it was written in the '80s, so that's fair. I also saw the plot twist coming miles away, which is not a problem I usually have with mysteries.
Robin Cook seems to have written a LOT of medical thrillers, and since that's one of my favourite genres, I'll try a few of the more recent ones in hopes that they are a little more medical and less detective story.
No lo encuentro representativo del género médico, menos para narrar la vivencia de una epidemia, pero resulta entretenido de leer, aunque con el final más soso que he leído en este género.
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
So so good. The beginning of the story is good, but once you get to the second half of the book, you just can't stop reading.
Lots of mystery, action, and surprises. Lots of science too, but still perfect for people who don't know a lot about it.
Lots of mystery, action, and surprises. Lots of science too, but still perfect for people who don't know a lot about it.