Book Review: "The Fever"

The Fever by Megan Abbott is an interesting book, written in a unique style that goes back and forth between three narratives -- a father's, a brother's, and a daughter's. Falling somewhere in the categories of drama and mystery, this book revolves around the lives of the teenage female inhabitants of one particular town, who one by one, all contract some mystery illness. All sorts of potential theories abound -- have these somehow been caused by the HPV vaccine? How about tainted water in the local lake? How about... the questions go on and on, with no real, concrete answers, and no real conrete links between any of the illnesses, either. No two show the exact same symptoms, which only intensifies the worries. Seemingly, nobody's safe if they can't come up with any answers. And yet, the main character of the story seems to be excluded from what's happening. She worries -- understandably so -- whether or not she'll be the next casualty? Given there aren't any answers, the fears are not unfounded.

Without giving too much away, the resolution of the book did not end up feeling very satisfactory for the story. The ending was incredibly rushed, lots of loose ends were left untied, and it's not the sort of book that would warrant a sequel when the culprit is discovered. Add this to the myriad of typos and fragment sentences that seem to be a large part of this author's style, and this book felt very lacking on multiple levels. I feel generous in rating it even a 3 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: "Assume The Position: Memoirs of an Obstetrician Gynecologist"

I know, I know. You must already be thinking wtf??? just at the title of this one, but it came up as a recommended book after I read Baby City, and honestly the title both made me giggle a little and intrigued me at the same time. (Plus, I was hoping maybe it might take away a little bit of my own phobias surrounding gynos, but no such luck.)

This book is, predictably, an autobiography of a former OB/GYN. I was hoping perhaps this book might have the same sort of excitement and flavor as Baby City, but honestly... I hate to say this about someone's life story, but it was actually pretty dull. (I was also put off by the many numerous typos. This is one thing that irks me about Kindle Direct Publishing and the fact that literally anyone can publish a book now; there's no editors who come in and check for these things anymore.) It details the whole journey, from med school through this man's entire career, and everything in between, as well as life after medicine. Given it's a field I once thought I might go into myself, I'll admit that I thought perhaps I could live vicariously a little here, but again, no such luck, since the book seems to focus more on things like how this job affected the author himself in his life rather than what goes on behind closed doors. (I realize there's patient confidentiality to take into account here, and this actually makes him a very good doctor for respecting that, but in terms of an author, maybe not so much.) Honestly I'm not quite sure what I was expecting here, but the whole book just felt like it was lacking a certain something I can't quite put my finger on, and I was never able to shake that feeling. For that reason, I'm rating it a 3 out of 5 stars. Not the worst book on the planet, but not the most gripping of tales, either.

Book Review: "On Christmas Eve"

Before you say anything, yes. I know. Christmas was a month ago (almost to the day, in fact!), and yet I'm just now reviewing this one? ...Frankly, I expected it to be a super quick read, and normally, it would have been, but having to catch up on Etsy orders, it took me until just now to finish it. No judging.

Anyway, that aside, this past NaNoWriMo season I decided I might like to take a crack at writing some children's books sometime (no, it wasn't my NaNoWriMo project this year), but that it's been so long since I've read one, I've almost forgotten what children's literature looks like. So, I harkened back to one of my favorite old mainstays of children's lit: Ann M. Martin, author of the beloved Babysitters Club series (of which I used to read practically religiously, and may even give a re-read to in the not-so-distant future). Truth be told, I actually was unaware she'd written anything outside of the Babysitters Club series/franchise, so when I learned by chance that she's actually written quite a few other books, I was intrigued, and this particular book happened to be the first one I was able to track down.

It's hard to really give a proper synopsis of this book without giving the entire plot away, but in a nutshell, our main character, a little girl named Tess, has a best friend (Sarah) whose best friend's father is dying of cancer. As this story takes place back in the 1950s, children were not yet allowed to visit patients in the hospital, and as such, Sarah progressively begins spending more and more time with Tess's family, even as the holidays approach. She remains ever hopeful that her father will be home in time for Christmas, even though the odds of that happening become more and more bleak as time marches on. Tess does everything in her power to try and keep Sarah in good spirits, including making sure she's included in her own holiday festivities (which she normally is anyway -- these two have been joined at the hip practically since birth), and at one point, even plan out a Christmas 'concert' to put on in the parking lot of the hospital, right outside her father's window, singing all his favorite carols.

Sarah's father is allowed to come home for Christmas -- coming home from the hospital "for the last time." Tess remains optimistic that perhaps this means he's getting better, and that this is the end of his medical woes, but Sarah knows more than she's letting on. Still, ever the optimist, Tess this whole time has been devising her own secret plan to stay up on Christmas Eve so that she can meet Santa Claus, face to face. Initially she has her own motives for wanting to do so, but when the time comes, she has only one Christmas wish: for Sarah's dad to get well again.....but there's some things that even Santa can't fix.

This story brought back an old childhood myth I had long forgotten about: the story about how at midnight, on Christmas Eve, animals are able to speak. (I always did wonder if this was true, and if I had gotten around to reading this book a little bit sooner, I probably would've stayed up at midnight this past Christmas Eve to see if my dog could speak at midnight. No hurt in hoping, anyway. ;)) Even as an adult, just reading about that even in this story, I got ridiculously excited and swept up in the hope that maybe this myth just might be true. Forget about meeting Santa -- I'm way more all about the prospect of talking to pets!

Anyway, this story is definitely one of hope, on many levels, and is definitely one that any child who's ever lost a parent (or any other relative, for that matter) to cancer might be able to relate to in not only the loss itself, but in how it changes and affects your life afterwards, and forces you to grow up way too fast. This really hit home, and I commend Ann M. Martin for going there. But I ALSO commend her for including a point where Sarah begins to find joy and hope in her life once again, even in the face of loss. I rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars!