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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
I read this sometime in the mid-90s and had enjoyed it. Listening to "This Podcast Will Kill You" made me want to revisit the book again, so I picked it up from the library. Re-reading was like nails down a chalk board. Robin Cook needs to be included in the "male writers writing female characters" tumblr thread (examples here. Within the first third of the book, the protagonist (Marissa) has her boss sexually harass her and after the encounter Mr. Cook has the audacity to have Marissa question why she behaved "unreasonably". 
That was pretty disappointing, really. I once read some advice that said if the author's name is larger than the title of the book, you should avoid it. This book may be evidence to support that. I mean, it was published in 1988 sure, but it was basically a Nancy Drew mystery with a medical setting. With the level of writing prowess to match...
There isn't much of a synopsis I can provide that isn't covered by the book's description. There are outbreaks of Ebola, and a doctor from the CDC is investigating to find out why. That's really just about it.
The first half of the book was really iffy. I've studied epidemiology and I find it very interesting, so I enjoyed it, but it really reads like a documentary discussing what would happen if a serious disease were to break out and what steps would be taken to contain it. Now, having studied epidemiology, it really wasn't saying anything new to me, either, but it felt like the author really wanted you to know that they know what they're talking about here. What's worse, it's re-described for every subsequent case. Each and every time she goes into a room with a patient, the book describes her putting on her protective gear bit by bit, observing sterile procedures, minimizing chances of spreading or contracting the virus, washing her hands once she's done... no seriously, we get it. They do the same fucking thing for each case.
The second half of the book was a bit better, although it was your standard generic action movie style story of rushing to get to the evidence/whatever before the bad guys get to the protagonist. I have to confess I kinda skimmed through some of it because I was in a hurry to come write a bitchy review. Nothing new here, and nothing all that interesting either really, although it's not a complete waste of time if you're just looking for a distraction for a couple of hours. It also requires a bit of suspension of belief when you start delving into motives and whatnot, but as long as you're not looking for any real mental stimulation...
Unfortunately for this book, the somewhat interesting descriptions of how to handle a virus outbreak is interrupted by cheesy romance drama. The entire country is at risk from a seriously infectious virus that has a 94% fatality rate, and her boss stops to hit on her. When she rebuffs him, he spends the entire rest of the book making her life (and very important job...) difficult because his nose is out of joint from the rejection. What's WORSE - She feels GUILTY about not going along with it and wonders (over and over again) if she should have just slept with him. Oh and also two other guys are hitting on her throughout the book but she's just so humble and self conscious that she doesn't really realize it.Gee I wonder if one of them will turn out to be the bad guy? Nah it couldn't possibly be... oh he was? I see.
Again, the book was written in the 80s, and it is an attempt at making a strong female lead. I suppose it was probably written before "Mary Sue" became a "thing", but I suspect Dr. Blumenthal wouldn't fare very well on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. She's so self conscious and has no confidence in her abilities, and meanwhile everyone around her is falling over themselves to describe how cute she is and how amazing she is at her job and oh also she is the only one who discovers all these links between things (because everyone else is too busy hitting on her to notice, I guess) and she manages to fight off assailants and come out smelling like roses on the other side of the door afterward. Every now and then it seemed like there would be an injection of an attempt to tone it down a bit, but every attempt at giving her a flaw just turns into yet another unexpected benefit for her. It was unfortunate because of how grating it became.
And then there was the dog. For the first half of the book, each and every time a new outbreak happened, the book would spend a paragraph explaining how she got someone to take care of her dog. Then when she comes back, a paragraph describing how the dog is so happy to see her. There was no purpose for this dog except filler. Which made me very suspicious.
Yep. The dog dies. Slain by the bad guys. Suddenly and without much warning, and no real mention afterward either, except when she gets a new one in the epilogue.
There was absolutely no reason for any of it to be included other than a transparent attempt at throwing sympathy to the character. Which, because it was transparent, just made me roll my eyes.
A lot of it made me roll my eyes, really. It was almost good in a lot of ways, and I thought the disease aspects were handled really well, but the rest of it was just so shallow that it was difficult to really enjoy fully.
There isn't much of a synopsis I can provide that isn't covered by the book's description. There are outbreaks of Ebola, and a doctor from the CDC is investigating to find out why. That's really just about it.
The first half of the book was really iffy. I've studied epidemiology and I find it very interesting, so I enjoyed it, but it really reads like a documentary discussing what would happen if a serious disease were to break out and what steps would be taken to contain it. Now, having studied epidemiology, it really wasn't saying anything new to me, either, but it felt like the author really wanted you to know that they know what they're talking about here. What's worse, it's re-described for every subsequent case. Each and every time she goes into a room with a patient, the book describes her putting on her protective gear bit by bit, observing sterile procedures, minimizing chances of spreading or contracting the virus, washing her hands once she's done... no seriously, we get it. They do the same fucking thing for each case.
The second half of the book was a bit better, although it was your standard generic action movie style story of rushing to get to the evidence/whatever before the bad guys get to the protagonist. I have to confess I kinda skimmed through some of it because I was in a hurry to come write a bitchy review. Nothing new here, and nothing all that interesting either really, although it's not a complete waste of time if you're just looking for a distraction for a couple of hours. It also requires a bit of suspension of belief when you start delving into motives and whatnot, but as long as you're not looking for any real mental stimulation...
Unfortunately for this book, the somewhat interesting descriptions of how to handle a virus outbreak is interrupted by cheesy romance drama. The entire country is at risk from a seriously infectious virus that has a 94% fatality rate, and her boss stops to hit on her. When she rebuffs him, he spends the entire rest of the book making her life (and very important job...) difficult because his nose is out of joint from the rejection. What's WORSE - She feels GUILTY about not going along with it and wonders (over and over again) if she should have just slept with him. Oh and also two other guys are hitting on her throughout the book but she's just so humble and self conscious that she doesn't really realize it.
Again, the book was written in the 80s, and it is an attempt at making a strong female lead. I suppose it was probably written before "Mary Sue" became a "thing", but I suspect Dr. Blumenthal wouldn't fare very well on the Mary Sue Litmus Test. She's so self conscious and has no confidence in her abilities, and meanwhile everyone around her is falling over themselves to describe how cute she is and how amazing she is at her job and oh also she is the only one who discovers all these links between things (because everyone else is too busy hitting on her to notice, I guess) and she manages to fight off assailants and come out smelling like roses on the other side of the door afterward. Every now and then it seemed like there would be an injection of an attempt to tone it down a bit, but every attempt at giving her a flaw just turns into yet another unexpected benefit for her. It was unfortunate because of how grating it became.
And then there was the dog. For the first half of the book, each and every time a new outbreak happened, the book would spend a paragraph explaining how she got someone to take care of her dog. Then when she comes back, a paragraph describing how the dog is so happy to see her. There was no purpose for this dog except filler. Which made me very suspicious.
There was absolutely no reason for any of it to be included other than a transparent attempt at throwing sympathy to the character. Which, because it was transparent, just made me roll my eyes.
A lot of it made me roll my eyes, really. It was almost good in a lot of ways, and I thought the disease aspects were handled really well, but the rest of it was just so shallow that it was difficult to really enjoy fully.
Was this book a quick and easy read? Yes.
Was this book reasonably diverting and moderately entertaining? Yes.
Did this book follow the exact same plot as every other Robin Cook novel? Yes.
Look, if you like Robin Cook and have accepted that every single one of his novels includes a reasonably young, reasonably accomplished, reasonably attractive doctor who likes to go running and has at least 2 suitors, then you should read this book. As with every other Cook novel, Marissa Blumenthal falls into all of the categories above and, if you've read other Cook selections, you can guess by about 20% into the book who "the bad guy" is.
Plot-wise, it was fairly interesting and it was cool to learn about about epidemiology and containment strategies -- particularly on the heels of our own real-life Ebola "scare" recently. However, as many other reviewers have noted, you really only need to hear about the containment strategies once to understand them and it's a waste of time/space to tell us every single time Marissa puts on her protective gear and takes it back off and puts it on for the next patient. Really, we do understand the process and with her overwhelming fear of the situation, I think we would understand that she went through proper procedures without being hand-held through it.
Additionally, I think that this was rather dated. Obviously it was written in the '80s, so things like not having a cell phone and the internet are expected, but the attitudes were also rather dated. For example, Marissa being so upset about the fact that she did not welcome her boss's advances and then blaming herself the entire time. That's ridiculous (even in the '80s) and honestly made me kind of resent Marissa for being so absurd. I get that often in cases of sexual harassment or mistreatment that it's common for a victim to blame themselves, but that was not what was going on here at all and. quite frankly, belittles what others have actually had to deal with.
All in all, I think it deserved the two stars as GoodReads says that two stars means "it was ok" and I think that is the perfect way to describe this book. It was ok.
Was this book reasonably diverting and moderately entertaining? Yes.
Did this book follow the exact same plot as every other Robin Cook novel? Yes.
Look, if you like Robin Cook and have accepted that every single one of his novels includes a reasonably young, reasonably accomplished, reasonably attractive doctor who likes to go running and has at least 2 suitors, then you should read this book. As with every other Cook novel, Marissa Blumenthal falls into all of the categories above and, if you've read other Cook selections, you can guess by about 20% into the book who "the bad guy" is.
Plot-wise, it was fairly interesting and it was cool to learn about about epidemiology and containment strategies -- particularly on the heels of our own real-life Ebola "scare" recently. However, as many other reviewers have noted, you really only need to hear about the containment strategies once to understand them and it's a waste of time/space to tell us every single time Marissa puts on her protective gear and takes it back off and puts it on for the next patient. Really, we do understand the process and with her overwhelming fear of the situation, I think we would understand that she went through proper procedures without being hand-held through it.
Additionally, I think that this was rather dated. Obviously it was written in the '80s, so things like not having a cell phone and the internet are expected, but the attitudes were also rather dated. For example, Marissa being so upset about the fact that she did not welcome her boss's advances and then blaming herself the entire time. That's ridiculous (even in the '80s) and honestly made me kind of resent Marissa for being so absurd. I get that often in cases of sexual harassment or mistreatment that it's common for a victim to blame themselves, but that was not what was going on here at all and. quite frankly, belittles what others have actually had to deal with.
All in all, I think it deserved the two stars as GoodReads says that two stars means "it was ok" and I think that is the perfect way to describe this book. It was ok.
OK, wildly different from the movie.
--
Originally published on my blog over the summer; I'm just now on 10/30 updating goodreads ... sigh...
So, I originally read this book a few years ago because I liked the movie "Outbreak" and when I originally wrote a review - just a few words - I commented it was nothing like the movie.
Well, I finally figured it out - the movie's not based upon this book! LOL No wonder it's not like the movie! (I'm a little slow sometimes)
So, Outbreak is about, duh, an Outbreak. Robin Cook, if you aren't familiar with the author, writes medical thrillers. I read a ton of his books back in the day, when I was actually reading thrillers. Not really sure what possessed me to read this now.
It was good - and if you like the genre you'll probably like this one. Things to keep in mind: it's dated. It's very dated. I didn't particularly like how relationships were written in the book, either, but it is a product of its time, like any other book. The main female character was supposed to be this smart, educated, independent women, yet she kept going out on dates with men she didn't even like romantically and kept calling them when she was out of town, and the men all but patted her on the head and called her "good little kitty" (they didn't really call her that, but I felt like they were treating her like a pet).
All in all though, I did enjoy the book, and it would make for a good movie!
--
Originally published on my blog over the summer; I'm just now on 10/30 updating goodreads ... sigh...
So, I originally read this book a few years ago because I liked the movie "Outbreak" and when I originally wrote a review - just a few words - I commented it was nothing like the movie.
Well, I finally figured it out - the movie's not based upon this book! LOL No wonder it's not like the movie! (I'm a little slow sometimes)
So, Outbreak is about, duh, an Outbreak. Robin Cook, if you aren't familiar with the author, writes medical thrillers. I read a ton of his books back in the day, when I was actually reading thrillers. Not really sure what possessed me to read this now.
It was good - and if you like the genre you'll probably like this one. Things to keep in mind: it's dated. It's very dated. I didn't particularly like how relationships were written in the book, either, but it is a product of its time, like any other book. The main female character was supposed to be this smart, educated, independent women, yet she kept going out on dates with men she didn't even like romantically and kept calling them when she was out of town, and the men all but patted her on the head and called her "good little kitty" (they didn't really call her that, but I felt like they were treating her like a pet).
All in all though, I did enjoy the book, and it would make for a good movie!
So prior to this being returned to the library, I was a good 60% in and was enjoying the concept of the book even though I was under the impression that this was the same as the film of the same name (FYI, it's not) but overall it wasn't bad but it was returned and so I placed myself back on the queue to loan it and I got it back and after reading the last 40% realized that maybe I should have stopped where I was.
The last 40% showed Marissa still being chased by goons as she bumbles and fumbles through how this virus spread, where it started and the people involved and yet with no experience manages to bypass all of these thugs and goons after her. She hardly seems aware if her surroundings so I find this hard to believe but I felt a bit disconnected in this latter half - maybe it was because there was a big lapse from when I started to now but the first half was more on the science and writings of Ebola and other viruses and the latter felt like a try at an action film with a sad try at a romance between Marissa and her boss. Which earlier in the book she rebuked and felt a little cringy being around but somehow at the end of the book she asks him if he's free?!?!?
Not to mention that there are two other guys that she's being hit on that could be viable options, so what if both look suspicious for different reasons but with so many after her, her love life was the least of my problems as they should have been hers too as she's going all over the US trying to solve the mystery behind these cases.
This left me thinking it was meh so there's little chance I might continue to be honest.
The last 40% showed Marissa still being chased by goons as she bumbles and fumbles through how this virus spread, where it started and the people involved and yet with no experience manages to bypass all of these thugs and goons after her. She hardly seems aware if her surroundings so I find this hard to believe but I felt a bit disconnected in this latter half - maybe it was because there was a big lapse from when I started to now but the first half was more on the science and writings of Ebola and other viruses and the latter felt like a try at an action film with a sad try at a romance between Marissa and her boss. Which earlier in the book she rebuked and felt a little cringy being around but somehow at the end of the book she asks him if he's free?!?!?
Not to mention that there are two other guys that she's being hit on that could be viable options, so what if both look suspicious for different reasons but with so many after her, her love life was the least of my problems as they should have been hers too as she's going all over the US trying to solve the mystery behind these cases.
This left me thinking it was meh so there's little chance I might continue to be honest.
*reader gives book a long, evil side-eye*
So, uh, let me get this straight..
Very tiny, super attractive doctor stumbles upon Big Evil Conspiracy.
Very tiny, super attractive doctor gets hit on by every man around her that's not trying to kill her. Very tiny, super attractive doctor somehow manages to be almost completely inept on a personal level, makes horrible choices, and still manages to save the day.
Very tiny, super attractive doctor completely forgives guy who was a complete buttpucker to her for the majority of the novel at the end, and we're to assume a happily every after.
Oh, also, there's mention of Ebola now and then.
*grumbles and stomps off*
So, uh, let me get this straight..
Very tiny, super attractive doctor stumbles upon Big Evil Conspiracy.
Very tiny, super attractive doctor gets hit on by every man around her that's not trying to kill her. Very tiny, super attractive doctor somehow manages to be almost completely inept on a personal level, makes horrible choices, and still manages to save the day.
Very tiny, super attractive doctor completely forgives guy who was a complete buttpucker to her for the majority of the novel at the end, and we're to assume a happily every after.
Oh, also, there's mention of Ebola now and then.
*grumbles and stomps off*
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No