A review by paulataua
The Waiting Rooms by Eve Smith

3.0

Dystopias are often best when they focus on the realistic and near at hand, and the antibiotic crisis certainly fits those criteria. Anyone thinking people could never act like they do in the novel might be pointed in the direction of a NPR news report a few days ago where a woman with an intellectual disability in Oregon was denied the ventilator she needed with the doctor, citing her "low quality of life", wanting her to sign a legal form to allow the hospital to deny her care. How frail humanity is. The dystopian angle is the very positive aspect of the novel and worth reading just for that. If there is a weakness for me it was in the story. It was pretty obvious very early on what was going to happen, and it was just a matter of waiting for that story to pan out. Slow but worth the time!