After Gene’s father’s tragic death, he follows in his footsteps by helping in the Heart Room, the open heart operating room. While dealing with his coworkers and cases, he is also trying to get over his first relationship that ended.
I absolutely love anything categorized as coming of age, but I’ve found that’s not really true... I like coming of age when the aging is more in the adolescence. This book, similar to another I read recently, had the main characters development taking place at the college level.. and the growing and learning is a bit more nuanced than those teenage coming of ages. Anyone interested in medicine and surgery would enjoy this. I did like the operating room scenes, especially the macabre humor and silly jokes during surgery. However, there’s only so many times I can read about a catheter being inserted.. super cringey for me! I loved the beginning of the story and getting to know his relationship but towards the end it drug for me and felt obsessive. The main character was not winning any points with me, especially after his attempt to kill a cat (he did change his mind, so we have that). Speaking of animals, I was on the edge of my seat the whole book because really... how many times can the family pet get injured?! Overall the best part of the book for me was the operating room scenes (sans catheter insertion) and the beginning of his relationship with Patty. I also liked that it took place in the 1970’s.
“Simple moments accumulate, one by one with a person, and through them, if we are lucky, we are enriched.”
Open Heart comes out 1/14.
I absolutely love anything categorized as coming of age, but I’ve found that’s not really true... I like coming of age when the aging is more in the adolescence. This book, similar to another I read recently, had the main characters development taking place at the college level.. and the growing and learning is a bit more nuanced than those teenage coming of ages. Anyone interested in medicine and surgery would enjoy this. I did like the operating room scenes, especially the macabre humor and silly jokes during surgery. However, there’s only so many times I can read about a catheter being inserted.. super cringey for me! I loved the beginning of the story and getting to know his relationship but towards the end it drug for me and felt obsessive. The main character was not winning any points with me, especially after his attempt to kill a cat (he did change his mind, so we have that). Speaking of animals, I was on the edge of my seat the whole book because really... how many times can the family pet get injured?! Overall the best part of the book for me was the operating room scenes (sans catheter insertion) and the beginning of his relationship with Patty. I also liked that it took place in the 1970’s.
“Simple moments accumulate, one by one with a person, and through them, if we are lucky, we are enriched.”
Open Heart comes out 1/14.