A review by sandlynn
Acute Reactions by Ruby Lang
3.0
I, myself, have mixed reactions to Ruby Lang’s Acute Reaction, published in 2015.
This book focuses on two smart people with a lot of emotional baggage who find acceptance and love with each other.
Petra Lale is a 31 year old allergist, who, unlike most of her medical compatriots, including her two best friends, decides to strike out on her own and open her own practice. 32 year old Ian Zamora is a restaurateur in Portland who spends more time attending to every detail of his successful business rather than with his girlfriend — a girlfriend who insists that Ian help take care of her cat even though he’s extremely allergic. That being said, Ian is determined to maintain the relationship since it’s the one thing in his life that isn’t quite on track. To help the situation, Ian makes an appointment with Dr. Petra Lale, the new allergist in the same neighborhood as his restaurant. When he visits her for the first time, he’s struck at 1) how little help Dr. Lale has and 2) how attractive and competent she is in spite of having to manage almost everything in her practice on her own. Petra, too, finds Ian attractive, but she’s very professional and would never act upon it. Besides, her life is currently wrapped up in trying to make a success of her business, worried that she took this big step too soon.
Not long after Ian’s first appointment, he finds he can’t stop thinking about Petra and decides to break up with his girlfriend … and her cat. However, since he knows no other way to keep seeing Petra, considering that it’s against medical ethics to date a patient, he continues seeing her professionally. Before long, he’s considering breaking off their doctor-patient relationship, but Petra strikes first by sending a letter stating that she can no longer be his doctor since he has feelings for her that she cannot return. That would appear to end that except, Ian and Petra keep running into each other and Petra begins to question her own professional ethics — let alone the worries she has about her business — and starts to wonder if she should’ve ever become a doctor. In addition, unlike Ian’s certainty regarding them as a couple, she’s unsure about her romantic choices, seeing herself as a projection of her mother whose been married a number of times. How will these two hard-working professionals make room in their lives for a romance that is off limits?
I was expecting to like this book a bit more than I did. On the upside, I love that Petra’s and Ian’s professions are such a part of the story. They are not wallpaper professionals, but are shown doing their jobs, worrying about them, and having them spill over into their personal lives as happens outside of novels. if you like competence porn, this is for you. Even though Petra is struggling in her business, she’s still extremely competent and Ian is, of course, a success, although his problem is not letting his business over shadow his personal life. In any event, this book does a great job of making Petra and Ian well-rounded people. There are a number of side characters who are more or less successful. Petra’s friends, her mother, and sister are there more as a foil for comparison in terms of Petra’s insecurities and anxieties. Ian’s friends are barely there — except at the very end. There is one character — a young patient of Petra’s — who was the most enjoyable and became important to both characters.
What didn’t work for me is that the plot seemed to stall in the middle — with both characters, but mostly Petra — spending most of the middle of the story going back and forth over their feelings, never seeming to progress. I began to lose patience with her and was surprised Ian hung in that long. Her neuroses were examined and re-examined in minute detail. It was only in the last 20 or so pages that things began happening to move the plot forward and one of those things was also a negative to my mind — Ian’s ex-girlfriend suddenly makes a re-appearance and becomes a big obstacle in Ian and Petra’s relationship despite not being a factor at all for most of the story. And, of course, she was the usual nasty “other woman”. Even though I was happy that events were happening that finally forced some action, you had to muck through a lot of annoying naval gazing to get there. I would give this book a B-.
This book focuses on two smart people with a lot of emotional baggage who find acceptance and love with each other.
Petra Lale is a 31 year old allergist, who, unlike most of her medical compatriots, including her two best friends, decides to strike out on her own and open her own practice. 32 year old Ian Zamora is a restaurateur in Portland who spends more time attending to every detail of his successful business rather than with his girlfriend — a girlfriend who insists that Ian help take care of her cat even though he’s extremely allergic. That being said, Ian is determined to maintain the relationship since it’s the one thing in his life that isn’t quite on track. To help the situation, Ian makes an appointment with Dr. Petra Lale, the new allergist in the same neighborhood as his restaurant. When he visits her for the first time, he’s struck at 1) how little help Dr. Lale has and 2) how attractive and competent she is in spite of having to manage almost everything in her practice on her own. Petra, too, finds Ian attractive, but she’s very professional and would never act upon it. Besides, her life is currently wrapped up in trying to make a success of her business, worried that she took this big step too soon.
Not long after Ian’s first appointment, he finds he can’t stop thinking about Petra and decides to break up with his girlfriend … and her cat. However, since he knows no other way to keep seeing Petra, considering that it’s against medical ethics to date a patient, he continues seeing her professionally. Before long, he’s considering breaking off their doctor-patient relationship, but Petra strikes first by sending a letter stating that she can no longer be his doctor since he has feelings for her that she cannot return. That would appear to end that except, Ian and Petra keep running into each other and Petra begins to question her own professional ethics — let alone the worries she has about her business — and starts to wonder if she should’ve ever become a doctor. In addition, unlike Ian’s certainty regarding them as a couple, she’s unsure about her romantic choices, seeing herself as a projection of her mother whose been married a number of times. How will these two hard-working professionals make room in their lives for a romance that is off limits?
I was expecting to like this book a bit more than I did. On the upside, I love that Petra’s and Ian’s professions are such a part of the story. They are not wallpaper professionals, but are shown doing their jobs, worrying about them, and having them spill over into their personal lives as happens outside of novels. if you like competence porn, this is for you. Even though Petra is struggling in her business, she’s still extremely competent and Ian is, of course, a success, although his problem is not letting his business over shadow his personal life. In any event, this book does a great job of making Petra and Ian well-rounded people. There are a number of side characters who are more or less successful. Petra’s friends, her mother, and sister are there more as a foil for comparison in terms of Petra’s insecurities and anxieties. Ian’s friends are barely there — except at the very end. There is one character — a young patient of Petra’s — who was the most enjoyable and became important to both characters.
What didn’t work for me is that the plot seemed to stall in the middle — with both characters, but mostly Petra — spending most of the middle of the story going back and forth over their feelings, never seeming to progress. I began to lose patience with her and was surprised Ian hung in that long. Her neuroses were examined and re-examined in minute detail. It was only in the last 20 or so pages that things began happening to move the plot forward and one of those things was also a negative to my mind — Ian’s ex-girlfriend suddenly makes a re-appearance and becomes a big obstacle in Ian and Petra’s relationship despite not being a factor at all for most of the story. And, of course, she was the usual nasty “other woman”. Even though I was happy that events were happening that finally forced some action, you had to muck through a lot of annoying naval gazing to get there. I would give this book a B-.