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ursulamonarch 's review for:
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir
by Michele Harper
I really enjoyed hearing the author speak on a podcast, and enjoyed the book less; however, seeing some of the racism and misogyny (and, of course, the intersectionality therein) in the reaction to this book drives home many of the author's points, sadly. The main takeaway for me from this book was that the medical profession is in a rough state for many, many reasons; I would be interested in readers who had their views changed, rather than reinforced, by this book.
I found the tone of the book pretty puzzling - it rapidly veered from not sugar-coating things, at best, and being judgmental ("Most people I knew of chose a partner with the same level of meaningful intention as Ken marrying Barbie, then reproduced reflexively like cattle" - yikes!), to being sentimental ("Parents know. They know the way we know life is gone as the gurney is rolled through the ambulance doors. Parents know because these angels whisper their last words in their ears and butterfly-kiss them good-bye.")
The most interesting part of the book to me involved the elitism of medicine crashing into the practicalities the author faces:
"There are plenty of occupations in which employees have no choice but to deal with anyone who shows up: restaurant server, flight attendant, shoe salesperson, hair stylist. Emergency medicine is the same. But before I became a doctor, I had always assumed there would be less violence and more civility in medicine. We train for a minimum of seven years and spend countless sleepless nights restarting hearts and resetting bones, and yet, now that I was practicing, I knew that we in the ER were no different"
I found the tone of the book pretty puzzling - it rapidly veered from not sugar-coating things, at best, and being judgmental ("Most people I knew of chose a partner with the same level of meaningful intention as Ken marrying Barbie, then reproduced reflexively like cattle" - yikes!), to being sentimental ("Parents know. They know the way we know life is gone as the gurney is rolled through the ambulance doors. Parents know because these angels whisper their last words in their ears and butterfly-kiss them good-bye.")
The most interesting part of the book to me involved the elitism of medicine crashing into the practicalities the author faces:
"There are plenty of occupations in which employees have no choice but to deal with anyone who shows up: restaurant server, flight attendant, shoe salesperson, hair stylist. Emergency medicine is the same. But before I became a doctor, I had always assumed there would be less violence and more civility in medicine. We train for a minimum of seven years and spend countless sleepless nights restarting hearts and resetting bones, and yet, now that I was practicing, I knew that we in the ER were no different"