lilyclare2's review against another edition
5.0
“By healing ourselves, we heal each other. By healing each other, we heal ourselves.”
jeriser's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
booksandbees's review against another edition
2.0
2 stars - it's ok or maybe 1 star because it's not ok?
A memoir about a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, this book doesn't deliver.
My 2 stars go to her writings about race and privilege, but the writing in general and the story is boring. Her writing and the story is so boring that it becomes fake. Like, I had to remind myself it was a memoir.
Every chapter starts with a story about a patient. Nothing in depth, just a few pages about the patient. Most of the writing is about Michele. Actually, about Michele disliking here job and telling us how fabulous she is.
Then every chapter ends with a life lesson that makes your eyes roll, it is far fetched and honestly often doesn't make any sense in relation to the patient she just discussed.
She had a rough childhood and later got divorced, and she tries to connect her story with the story of her patients, which doesn't make any sense and actually is disrespectful.
ER stories with extreme pain, cancer, wounds and death is not something that you can compare to problems in your personal life (such as a breakup), and then end it with a preachy self care line. No, just no.
There are three moments that actually made me dislike her and I hardly ever dislike characters in books.
1. A woman very much traumatized (think rape and abortion) comes in. The author manages to add in a sentence where she says she looks so much younger than here age... What? No one cares!
2. A man comes in with pain and was reported to have been violent in the past (grabbed a female doctor by her breast?), she doesn't know the current medical case but is so angry by this that she lets the poor guy wait in excruciating pain! Help the poor guy! Be a professional. Get help (police/male doctors) if you are scared, but don't drink coffee when he is about to die. Who does she think she is? I forgot, but she might have ended that chapter with a line about judging others... She would never apologize or feel regret for letting him wait. Because Michele is fabulous, remember?
3. A baby stops breathing and dies before he gets to the hospital. She can't intubate him and back home she realized this was the child she could have had with her ex and that she needs to share her feelings more. Wait? What?
Every story she turns into a selfish act of look at me doing better. People are dying, I can't save them but hey that's the beauty of breaking because they save me!
If you are looking forward to the nitty and gritty of what it's like to be a woman of color working in a profession, which has long been dominated by old white men, this is not your book. I actually think she doesn't like her job because of it and simply left.
Only one story was powerful. About forcing a black man against his will to get treatment.
But mostly she shares stories of dying kids and makes that relevant to her ''problematic'' life with yoga (lots of it and very boring), dating and eating organic.
I ended the book not liking Michele. She didn't manage to convey a strong message, the book was mostly about her loving herself, in almost every chapter she expressed how amazing she is and I have no clue what she is doing now with her wish to be a ''healer''.
This book is for you if you like to read about a woman of color complaining about how everyone was against her because of her skin color while she is the smartest, prettiest and best in the world.
Unfortunately, I was deeply unimpressed with her portrayal of how important she is.
End rant. Pfew.... :)
A memoir about a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, this book doesn't deliver.
My 2 stars go to her writings about race and privilege, but the writing in general and the story is boring. Her writing and the story is so boring that it becomes fake. Like, I had to remind myself it was a memoir.
Every chapter starts with a story about a patient. Nothing in depth, just a few pages about the patient. Most of the writing is about Michele. Actually, about Michele disliking here job and telling us how fabulous she is.
Then every chapter ends with a life lesson that makes your eyes roll, it is far fetched and honestly often doesn't make any sense in relation to the patient she just discussed.
She had a rough childhood and later got divorced, and she tries to connect her story with the story of her patients, which doesn't make any sense and actually is disrespectful.
ER stories with extreme pain, cancer, wounds and death is not something that you can compare to problems in your personal life (such as a breakup), and then end it with a preachy self care line. No, just no.
There are three moments that actually made me dislike her and I hardly ever dislike characters in books.
1. A woman very much traumatized (think rape and abortion) comes in. The author manages to add in a sentence where she says she looks so much younger than here age... What? No one cares!
2. A man comes in with pain and was reported to have been violent in the past (grabbed a female doctor by her breast?), she doesn't know the current medical case but is so angry by this that she lets the poor guy wait in excruciating pain! Help the poor guy! Be a professional. Get help (police/male doctors) if you are scared, but don't drink coffee when he is about to die. Who does she think she is? I forgot, but she might have ended that chapter with a line about judging others... She would never apologize or feel regret for letting him wait. Because Michele is fabulous, remember?
3. A baby stops breathing and dies before he gets to the hospital. She can't intubate him and back home she realized this was the child she could have had with her ex and that she needs to share her feelings more. Wait? What?
Every story she turns into a selfish act of look at me doing better. People are dying, I can't save them but hey that's the beauty of breaking because they save me!
If you are looking forward to the nitty and gritty of what it's like to be a woman of color working in a profession, which has long been dominated by old white men, this is not your book. I actually think she doesn't like her job because of it and simply left.
Only one story was powerful. About forcing a black man against his will to get treatment.
But mostly she shares stories of dying kids and makes that relevant to her ''problematic'' life with yoga (lots of it and very boring), dating and eating organic.
I ended the book not liking Michele. She didn't manage to convey a strong message, the book was mostly about her loving herself, in almost every chapter she expressed how amazing she is and I have no clue what she is doing now with her wish to be a ''healer''.
This book is for you if you like to read about a woman of color complaining about how everyone was against her because of her skin color while she is the smartest, prettiest and best in the world.
Unfortunately, I was deeply unimpressed with her portrayal of how important she is.
End rant. Pfew.... :)
morganpitt's review against another edition
3.0
Wonderful, honest, smart and sometimes horrifying look into the world of emergency medicine, race and politics. Perfect example of why I love the Book of the Month club. I would have never heard of this or read if it wasn’t for them. I so happy I did.
miguelf's review against another edition
3.0
An ER doctor tells tales from the front lines of US hospital work. This book is firmly in the personal essay swim lane, which isn’t the highest of compliments. It floats around with anecdotes and is sometimes interesting, but other times it’s difficult to muster the interest in the topic at hand especially when it veers toward the very personal. Also biased on this since my sister has the same position and her on-the-job stories have been similar, only funnier.
librostace's review against another edition
3.0
I thought this was going to be a different kind of memoir than it was. The disclaimer for this review is that I work in healthcare. Most of the chapters are like case studies of different patients one might find in the ER and how many systems fail them. I already had an understanding of the lot of these issues and her description of how she organizes her day just kind of bored me.
I also found her repeated comments along the lines of "I knew I would be moving on from here" kind of irritating. Not that it's not true or relatable but somehow in this written format the tone felt off, a bit flat. I suspect I would like her more in person.
I believe someone who doesn't work in healthcare will find this more enlightening than I did.
I am looking forward to eventually reading "When Breath Becomes Air" and "In Shock."
I also found her repeated comments along the lines of "I knew I would be moving on from here" kind of irritating. Not that it's not true or relatable but somehow in this written format the tone felt off, a bit flat. I suspect I would like her more in person.
I believe someone who doesn't work in healthcare will find this more enlightening than I did.
I am looking forward to eventually reading "When Breath Becomes Air" and "In Shock."