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blymanor's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Chronic illness, Death, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
If it was in a plotline on the show, there's a chance it is mentioned in the book.vacantbones's review
3.0
One cool fall day in 2016, I, a lonely and anxious college freshman, sat in my dorm and pondered what to do with my free time. Certainly, any and all socialization was out of the picture, so starting to binge-watch a series I hadn't seen before sounded good. The rest, as they say, is history.
How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy is compulsively readable, to the point where I would've finished it in one sitting if I didn't force myself to stop. Using largely an interview format to tell the story of Grey's Anatomy aided in this speedy readability. I enjoyed reading this one, but I did have some problems with it and thus the middle of the road rating.
-My biggest problem with the book is the way in which the author's interviews for the book are spliced together with interviews from Entertainment Weekly. I understand that it was necessary to use these EW interviews in order to get input from those people who wouldn't be interviewed for How to Save a Life (namely, Shonda Rhimes herself), but it felt messy to have no clarification as to where each quote was coming from. I guess you could say the weaving together of these sources is clever, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
-Speaking of interviews, I wish that the job titles in parentheses would've remained past the first introductions because boy oh boy, I have too many things going on in my brain to remember who the costume designer for Grey's Anatomy is.
-Truthfully, this book did not need to be written until after the series has wrapped. Look, I get it, this show is like a zombie that will not go down no matter how many times you wack it in the head with a shovel. Pompeo notoriously taunts that she's ready to pull the plug and then signs on for fifty-seven more seasons. And the competition to write a full history of Grey's will likely skyrocket when it finally does say goodbye. But How to Save a Life doesn't have the privilege of being able to see the future because, while it talks about season 17 as if it certainly is the end of Grey's with a level of sureness, Google tells me that we can expect at least to see season 19 on our screens this year. The 'inside history' of Grey's Anatomy likely won't be fully revealed until it finally ends, and that is one of the many reasons why I wish this book would've waited a few years to come into the world.
I mean, overall, if you're a fan of the show, go for it. Even as a casual fan, I feel like I didn't learn much that wasn't already out there in one capacity or another, but it was still very cool to see one of my favorite shows in another format.
How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy is compulsively readable, to the point where I would've finished it in one sitting if I didn't force myself to stop. Using largely an interview format to tell the story of Grey's Anatomy aided in this speedy readability. I enjoyed reading this one, but I did have some problems with it and thus the middle of the road rating.
-My biggest problem with the book is the way in which the author's interviews for the book are spliced together with interviews from Entertainment Weekly. I understand that it was necessary to use these EW interviews in order to get input from those people who wouldn't be interviewed for How to Save a Life (namely, Shonda Rhimes herself), but it felt messy to have no clarification as to where each quote was coming from. I guess you could say the weaving together of these sources is clever, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
-Speaking of interviews, I wish that the job titles in parentheses would've remained past the first introductions because boy oh boy, I have too many things going on in my brain to remember who the costume designer for Grey's Anatomy is.
-Truthfully, this book did not need to be written until after the series has wrapped. Look, I get it, this show is like a zombie that will not go down no matter how many times you wack it in the head with a shovel. Pompeo notoriously taunts that she's ready to pull the plug and then signs on for fifty-seven more seasons. And the competition to write a full history of Grey's will likely skyrocket when it finally does say goodbye. But How to Save a Life doesn't have the privilege of being able to see the future because, while it talks about season 17 as if it certainly is the end of Grey's with a level of sureness, Google tells me that we can expect at least to see season 19 on our screens this year. The 'inside history' of Grey's Anatomy likely won't be fully revealed until it finally ends, and that is one of the many reasons why I wish this book would've waited a few years to come into the world.
I mean, overall, if you're a fan of the show, go for it. Even as a casual fan, I feel like I didn't learn much that wasn't already out there in one capacity or another, but it was still very cool to see one of my favorite shows in another format.
gemmajones's review
5.0
A must have for any Grey’s Anatomy fan! Great to have all outside sources/interviews/opinions in one place. I wish there were a few more main actors involved but worth the read nevertheless.