Ok, after I finished the new Harry Potter book (I’ll write a review of that when I have more time), I only had one more new book sitting around—White Night by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files book #9). It was decent, entertaining, not high literature but good escapist reading just like the previous 8. (I’m pissed that they didn’t renew the show on the Sci Fi channel). I finished it pretty quickly. This left me in a mild panic, because all of my books were still packed. Fortunately, Dan had a couple of books that I hadn’t read that were more accessible than my many boxes (since going through my zillion boxes of books trying to find one I hadn’t read would have taken forever).
First I read Coma by Robin Cook, who is probably the single worst author I’ve ever read. My god, the stilted dialogue sounds like everyone is composing their doctoral thesis on the fly while having casual conversations with each other. It’s so incredibly bad… here, let me quote a couple of passages. Remember, these occur in the DIALOG of the story. This is one character speaking to another off the cuff:
“Miss Wheeler,” continued Harris in a condescending tone, “your emotionalism is out of place and frankly will not serve constructive purposes. What one needs in these cases is to establish a causal factor. I’ve just mentioned to Dr. Bellows that the anesthetic agent was different in these two cases. The anesthetic care was unimpeachable save for a few minor debatable points. In short, both these cases were obviously unavoidable idiosyncratic reactions to the combination of anesthesia and surgery. One needs to try to determine from these people if there is a way in order to forecast this kind of disastrous sequelae. To condemn anesthesia across the board and deprive the populace of needed surgery would be far worse than to accept a certain minimal risk involved in anesthesia. What . . . “
And here is another, where Miss Wheeler (medical student) is giving an IV to a patient who she has just met, and who has just paid her a compliment by saying she was feminine:
“Please call me Sean,” said Berman.
“Thank you, Sean,” replied Susan. [snip] “You know, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much I appreciate your compliment. It might sound rather strange to you, but to be quite honest, I haven’t felt feminine over the last year or so. To hear someone like yourself say so is enormously reassuring. It’s not that I have dwelt on it, but just the same I have begun to think of myself as…” Susan paused, thinking of the right word. “Neutral, or neuter. Yes, that’s the right word, neuter. It has happened slowly, in degrees, and I guess I’m really only aware of it by comparison when I get together with some of my former college classmates, especially my former roommate.”
!? The hell? Who talks like that?! Gah! It’s awful! Ghastly! The whole book is just exactly as ponderous as those two passages, too. It’s just hideous.
When I finished that one, I picked up The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. I finished it in a day. My comments, however, contain spoilers, so I’ll put those on the next page. If you don’t want the book spoiled, don’t click to the next page. This is the last book I’m talking about so you won’t miss anything.
continued:
— 06:20:34 AM
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