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A review by alyssawatsonlee
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
challenging
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.0
The first half of the book is a very interesting account of what it was like inside the hospital during and after Katrina. The second half is an overly detailed, arduous description of the investigation that took place afterwards. While the ethics are interesting, this book could have benefited from a better editor. No one cares about every single detail of the investigation down to the car the investigator drives. I would have found an exploration of the government/administration failures, and a discussion of how this horrific event impacted (or should have impacted) emergency management much more useful, and was entirely left to the afterword.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Excrement, and Medical content