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heyallimarie's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
This was eerily like reading about the Covid pandemic, and we’re far enough removed from the height of it that I actually enjoyed it. I liked the medical aspect and I thought the character development was well done. The plot moved a little slow for my taste, which is why it took me so long to get through it.
sunshine608's review
I really enjoy Ms. Martin's books and was looking forward to her new one. It wasn't quite what I expected and I did enjoy it, although I did have to put it down a few times because it was very real and raw.
rachreadsbooks27's review
3.0
Pretty mind blowing that she wrote this before covid… it was very well written and I did enjoy the friendships, but reading this while also watching Station Eleven has me worn out. Too much fictional pandemic while we are still in a real pandemic.
annhenry's review
2.0
We’ll written but just too soon after the pandemic to completely give it my all.
smalltownbookmom's review
4.0
An eerily similar fictional pandemic world told from the perspective of four friends who are doctors and how their lives changed because of the virus. Great on audio with an author’s note about the book at the end. Plus such a gorgeous cover!
marilynw's review
4.0
Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin
Kimmery Martin wrote this story before Covid-19 became a part of all our lives. As a former emergency medicine physician, her understanding of the strain on the health care workers during a pandemic is shown here in horrifying detail. Before Covid-19, I think it would have been easy for me to dismiss the happenings in this story as something that happens somewhere else, to someone else, but after the last eighteen or so months, this story felt way too real.
The story covers seven women doctors, close friends since their medical school days. Each of them is successful in their medical specialty. Five of the women are present when one of the first known victims of a fast spreading virus fells a young woman. One of them, Kira Marchand, an infectious disease doctor at the CDC in Atlanta, is center stage in the effort to learn just what is killing hundreds of thousands of people and what can be done to save lives and stop the spread of this virus and one that comes after it.
Another of the friends is Compton Winfield, is an emergency room doctor in New York City, where the city is brought to a stand still by the number of victims of the pandemic. It's an unwinnable war for some and even for those who may survive the initial onslaught to their body, many will be hit later with something different but just as horrible. We also follow Hannah Geier, an ob-gyn in San Diego, whose hopes of finally having a baby may be shattered by this devastating virus.
As doctors, each of these women must keep working to save those they can, despite the futility of their efforts. Friends and family are lost, the emotional and mental toll is enormous, and they and other health workers struggle with exhaustion, grief, guilt, and the feeling of helplessness. Before now I've avoided reading a story like this because the "realness" was more than I wanted to face but I'm glad I read the story and I enjoyed the closeness, love, and unconditional support these women gave to each other. There are choices that must be made, life and death choices that may even decide the fate of the closest of family members, choices made under the worst of circumstances. I appreciate that despite the horribleness of the situation, that the author gave us some happy times and happy outcomes. Happy outcomes that can't erase all the heartache and loss but that allow for hope to exist, all the same.
Publication: November 9, 2021
Thank you to Elisha at Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for this ARC.
Kimmery Martin wrote this story before Covid-19 became a part of all our lives. As a former emergency medicine physician, her understanding of the strain on the health care workers during a pandemic is shown here in horrifying detail. Before Covid-19, I think it would have been easy for me to dismiss the happenings in this story as something that happens somewhere else, to someone else, but after the last eighteen or so months, this story felt way too real.
The story covers seven women doctors, close friends since their medical school days. Each of them is successful in their medical specialty. Five of the women are present when one of the first known victims of a fast spreading virus fells a young woman. One of them, Kira Marchand, an infectious disease doctor at the CDC in Atlanta, is center stage in the effort to learn just what is killing hundreds of thousands of people and what can be done to save lives and stop the spread of this virus and one that comes after it.
Another of the friends is Compton Winfield, is an emergency room doctor in New York City, where the city is brought to a stand still by the number of victims of the pandemic. It's an unwinnable war for some and even for those who may survive the initial onslaught to their body, many will be hit later with something different but just as horrible. We also follow Hannah Geier, an ob-gyn in San Diego, whose hopes of finally having a baby may be shattered by this devastating virus.
As doctors, each of these women must keep working to save those they can, despite the futility of their efforts. Friends and family are lost, the emotional and mental toll is enormous, and they and other health workers struggle with exhaustion, grief, guilt, and the feeling of helplessness. Before now I've avoided reading a story like this because the "realness" was more than I wanted to face but I'm glad I read the story and I enjoyed the closeness, love, and unconditional support these women gave to each other. There are choices that must be made, life and death choices that may even decide the fate of the closest of family members, choices made under the worst of circumstances. I appreciate that despite the horribleness of the situation, that the author gave us some happy times and happy outcomes. Happy outcomes that can't erase all the heartache and loss but that allow for hope to exist, all the same.
Publication: November 9, 2021
Thank you to Elisha at Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for this ARC.
bbiermann's review
4.0
A pandemic novel, written before our present pandemic, with eerie similarities and one big difference...a fictional president who cares and listens to science.
amysbrittain's review
4.0
Through various doctors' and medical experts' points of view, Martin paints a picture of a worldwide pandemic, crises and impossible situations, and powerful, sustaining friendships.
Kimmery Martin's Doctors and Friends begins with a group of seven women, friends since medical school, reuniting in Spain.
But as they catch up on each other's careers and personal lives, explore, eat, drink, and celebrate, a global pandemic begins to take shape.
Kira Marchand, an infectious disease specialist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, is at the heart of the organization's swift response to the pandemic. The story alludes to a horrifying choice she will be forced to make during the global crisis.
Compton Winfield, an ER doctor in New York City, suffers a tragic loss and struggles to keep up with the pandemic-driven crush of patients and urgent needs while keeping her children safe.
Hannah Geier is an ob-gyn in San Diego who has been struggling to have a child. She learns she's pregnant just as the pandemic throws the world into chaos.
I wondered if the multiple, alternating points of view would allow me to feel connected to these characters. For a time, I confused some of the seven characters and their significant others, and the fact that I was reading this in short bursts admittedly didn't help my own tracking of who was who. I spent early pages reorienting myself. As the story progresses, Martin mentions each of women and their families, but keeps the story relatively streamlined with three main points of view.
I was hooked on the medical details and the behind-the-scenes medical experiences of the experts. The various ways Martin made the pandemic feel personal to the story--as with the account of Patient Zero's experience and his two degrees of separation from the main characters--added to the urgent feeling.
The experts in the story scramble to make sense of what's happening and determine how best to cope with various aspects of the virus, and this felt uncomfortably familiar. However, in the book, politicians and those in power show early acceptance of the virus crisis and launch an efficient response, buoyed by technological abilities to trace and track. It's satisfying to witness the recognition and success within this fictional version of events.
Doctors and Friends was written before the Covid-19 pandemic and published in the fall of 2021. In her author's note, Martin explains her extensive research into pandemics, and clarifies that her experiences with the real-life pandemic shaped only minor edits to her story (for example, she added Zoom as a meeting structure).
It's possible very little in the book was changed in light of real-world events, but, and maybe this is unreasonable, but I very much wished that Martin's pre-Covid-19 version of events had been purely preserved. I was fascinated by the technological advancements that allowed for the scientists' and government's responses in the novel, and I'd very much like to have read what I knew was an unadulterated, Martin-imagined chain of events that preceded our own Covid-19 reality.
The cover and title gave me the initial impression that this was a light fiction book, but the topic and tone is anything but.
Kimmery Martin is a local-to-me North Carolina author who is also a trustee of our local library. After she spoke at our library foundation event last year, my book club read this book together.
Martin is a former emergency medicine doctor. She is also the author of The Queen of Hearts and The Antidote to Everything.
To see my full review on The Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see Doctors and Friends.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! The Bossy Bookworm
Kimmery Martin's Doctors and Friends begins with a group of seven women, friends since medical school, reuniting in Spain.
But as they catch up on each other's careers and personal lives, explore, eat, drink, and celebrate, a global pandemic begins to take shape.
Kira Marchand, an infectious disease specialist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, is at the heart of the organization's swift response to the pandemic. The story alludes to a horrifying choice she will be forced to make during the global crisis.
Compton Winfield, an ER doctor in New York City, suffers a tragic loss and struggles to keep up with the pandemic-driven crush of patients and urgent needs while keeping her children safe.
Hannah Geier is an ob-gyn in San Diego who has been struggling to have a child. She learns she's pregnant just as the pandemic throws the world into chaos.
I wondered if the multiple, alternating points of view would allow me to feel connected to these characters. For a time, I confused some of the seven characters and their significant others, and the fact that I was reading this in short bursts admittedly didn't help my own tracking of who was who. I spent early pages reorienting myself. As the story progresses, Martin mentions each of women and their families, but keeps the story relatively streamlined with three main points of view.
I was hooked on the medical details and the behind-the-scenes medical experiences of the experts. The various ways Martin made the pandemic feel personal to the story--as with the account of Patient Zero's experience and his two degrees of separation from the main characters--added to the urgent feeling.
The experts in the story scramble to make sense of what's happening and determine how best to cope with various aspects of the virus, and this felt uncomfortably familiar. However, in the book, politicians and those in power show early acceptance of the virus crisis and launch an efficient response, buoyed by technological abilities to trace and track. It's satisfying to witness the recognition and success within this fictional version of events.
Doctors and Friends was written before the Covid-19 pandemic and published in the fall of 2021. In her author's note, Martin explains her extensive research into pandemics, and clarifies that her experiences with the real-life pandemic shaped only minor edits to her story (for example, she added Zoom as a meeting structure).
It's possible very little in the book was changed in light of real-world events, but, and maybe this is unreasonable, but I very much wished that Martin's pre-Covid-19 version of events had been purely preserved. I was fascinated by the technological advancements that allowed for the scientists' and government's responses in the novel, and I'd very much like to have read what I knew was an unadulterated, Martin-imagined chain of events that preceded our own Covid-19 reality.
The cover and title gave me the initial impression that this was a light fiction book, but the topic and tone is anything but.
Kimmery Martin is a local-to-me North Carolina author who is also a trustee of our local library. After she spoke at our library foundation event last year, my book club read this book together.
Martin is a former emergency medicine doctor. She is also the author of The Queen of Hearts and The Antidote to Everything.
To see my full review on The Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see Doctors and Friends.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! The Bossy Bookworm
danidsfavereads's review
4.0
Wow, this one was intense. I started out reading the eARC and ended up switching to the audiobook because it was stressing me out.
I really loved the scenes when all the friends interacted with each other. How they supported each other through the horrors they were dealing with.
This is a challenging book to read given the pandemic but it gives a good glimpse into the ways different people were impacted including an ER doctor and a CDC employee.
I ultimately enjoyed this one and look forward to the stories featuring the other doctors mentioned.
I really loved the scenes when all the friends interacted with each other. How they supported each other through the horrors they were dealing with.
This is a challenging book to read given the pandemic but it gives a good glimpse into the ways different people were impacted including an ER doctor and a CDC employee.
I ultimately enjoyed this one and look forward to the stories featuring the other doctors mentioned.
purrfectpages's review
4.0
First let me start with a disclaimer. If you are looking for a book to escape the chaotic world climate, specifically how it relates to Covid-19, then this is not the book for you. That being said, this is a gripping story that ironically predates the pandemic conditions we currently live in. However, the parallels between the two are striking.
In Martin’s fictional pandemic world, we meet Hannah, Compton, and Kira. Friends since medical school, the women are reuniting for a vacation. Unbeknownst to them, the world is on the verge of being turned upside down by the spread of a new virus. As the events unfold in past, present, and future timelines, we see not only how it impacts these women personally, but how it effects world at large.
Origin stories have always fascinated me. Prior to COVID, I was engrossed in the origins of the AIDS epidemic as it was laid out in And The Band Played On. Despite its disturbingly generic title, Doctors and Friends is an engrossing contemporary fiction novel that reads like a horror story on multiple levels. There’s no doubt that Martin, who is known for writing medical fiction, is haunted by the uncanny similarities and timing of this release with present day conditions.
The fictional pandemic set forth in the book also offers some long term rollouts that I could see happening in the real world. Had I known what this story was truly about before reading it, would I have chosen it to read right now? Probably not. However, I’m glad I pushed through as it was interesting to compare and contrast how life imitates art with this captivating release.
In Martin’s fictional pandemic world, we meet Hannah, Compton, and Kira. Friends since medical school, the women are reuniting for a vacation. Unbeknownst to them, the world is on the verge of being turned upside down by the spread of a new virus. As the events unfold in past, present, and future timelines, we see not only how it impacts these women personally, but how it effects world at large.
Origin stories have always fascinated me. Prior to COVID, I was engrossed in the origins of the AIDS epidemic as it was laid out in And The Band Played On. Despite its disturbingly generic title, Doctors and Friends is an engrossing contemporary fiction novel that reads like a horror story on multiple levels. There’s no doubt that Martin, who is known for writing medical fiction, is haunted by the uncanny similarities and timing of this release with present day conditions.
The fictional pandemic set forth in the book also offers some long term rollouts that I could see happening in the real world. Had I known what this story was truly about before reading it, would I have chosen it to read right now? Probably not. However, I’m glad I pushed through as it was interesting to compare and contrast how life imitates art with this captivating release.