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A review by ljwrites85
The Waiting Rooms by Eve Smith
4.0
The Waiting Rooms is a captivating, if slightly scary, read.
So I decided what better book to read during a pandemic is a book about a pandemic! As it happens this novel turned out to be so much more than that, the pandemic sort of fades into the background and it becomes more of a tale of love and loss.
Eve Smith has created a believable world not too far off from our own world, where the overuse of antibiotics had led to disease or injury, once easily treated, has become deadly. Over seventies are denied medication or treatment, they have the option to either end their lives or suffer their illness until the end. They are sent to ‘waiting rooms’ if they’re lucky they end up in a top notch nursing home, the less lucky ones end rotting away in flats.
The main story revolves around three women. Kate who’s adoptive mother has just died leading her to look for her birth mother. Lily, who is just coming up for her seventieth birthday and is afraid that someone from her past is coming back to haunt her. Then there’s Mary whose POV that starts before the crisis and goes to the root of what happened. Each character is really fleshed out and flawed, you almost think that they’re real.
The parts that were set in Africa were amazing and descriptive, I could almost picture myself there while I was reading.
If I’m going to nitpick here, certain aspects of the story were a little predictable but of course that’s just my opinion.
The Waiting room has realistic characters and an evocative storyline that makes it an almost hypnotising read.
So I decided what better book to read during a pandemic is a book about a pandemic! As it happens this novel turned out to be so much more than that, the pandemic sort of fades into the background and it becomes more of a tale of love and loss.
Eve Smith has created a believable world not too far off from our own world, where the overuse of antibiotics had led to disease or injury, once easily treated, has become deadly. Over seventies are denied medication or treatment, they have the option to either end their lives or suffer their illness until the end. They are sent to ‘waiting rooms’ if they’re lucky they end up in a top notch nursing home, the less lucky ones end rotting away in flats.
The main story revolves around three women. Kate who’s adoptive mother has just died leading her to look for her birth mother. Lily, who is just coming up for her seventieth birthday and is afraid that someone from her past is coming back to haunt her. Then there’s Mary whose POV that starts before the crisis and goes to the root of what happened. Each character is really fleshed out and flawed, you almost think that they’re real.
The parts that were set in Africa were amazing and descriptive, I could almost picture myself there while I was reading.
If I’m going to nitpick here, certain aspects of the story were a little predictable but of course that’s just my opinion.
The Waiting room has realistic characters and an evocative storyline that makes it an almost hypnotising read.