Coming in under the wire on this post, but not on finishing this book!
I decided to stick with non fiction for the third week in a row and I was not disappointed at all. I’d seen this book on some forgotten list of books to read this fall and knew it’d be right up my alley, as I’m endlessly fascinated by medicine. I think it’s mainly because it is something that is so far out of my reach that I cannot comprehend what it would take to know it so well, though my Scrubs education has taught me plenty about medicine. (My sister- equally scientifically challenged- may have a more legit favorite medical show in House.)
Working Stiff was a really interesting look into the life of a medical examiner in Manhattan in the early 2000s. Fair warning: the book goes into really graphic detail. A lot. That said, it was done pretty artfully- I never felt as if things were being embellished (or sugar coated, for that matter) for the sake of the story. The author writes a lot like many with scientific minds: pretty straightforward, very factual and with little exaggeration, but all without being dry. It was a page turner to be certain, but there were definitely some passages I read with clenched fists…and I have a fairly strong stomach. (For proof, ask me about the time I watched my own medical procedure as it was happening.) I also loved how much of her job seems to be devoted to asking questions, because it meant there were very few procedural questions in this book left unanswered.
The most interesting chapter to me was the one about the response following 9/11. I’ve talked before about the subconscious being weird- I’m not sure that that came into play much here, but it was at the very least a really eerie coincidence to read this book the week after the 13th anniversary of the attacks. For as much as I have read and seen about 9/11, it’s always accounts of the NYPD and FDNY assistance- I didn’t very consciously think about the fact that people had to identify the victims. It goes into pretty gruesome detail, but I think it was an important thing for me to read and begin to wrap my head around.
Worth a read, but as I recover from some of the imagery, I’ll stick to Scrubs when I have the desire to immerse myself in the medical field.
You’ll like this if: you have a strong, strong stomach- there are a lot of really brutal descriptions.
Happy reading!
carlyreads 