A sometimes-intriguing but longwinded look at day-to-day hospital life.
A hospital engineer keeps a chaotic workplace functioning in Clear’s debut novel.
Phil Stewart is the chief engineer at a hospital that seems to be falling apart. There are plumbing issues, mysterious power outages, and skyrocketing renovation costs, among other issues. Phil solves a series of problems, often fighting against the opposition of the nursing staff. He also has an ailing mother who lives far away, so he moves her to a nursing home closer to his house so he can better see to her care. A new administrator shakes things up at the hospital, and Phil’s biggest source of anguish are the policies of the corporation that owns the facility, which often contradict what’s best for the patients. The hospital also gets hit with Covid-19, and Phil has to deal with an aging workforce at risk and his suspicion that some of the staff don’t know how to operate the equipment he’s responsible for maintaining. He starts to believe that the technology that’s made the staff’s lives easier is also making them less competent, because machines are doing most of their work for them. When Phil’s mother is admitted to a different hospital, he finds it hard to trust those caring for her. As the novel progresses, there are several scenes of long administrative meetings that bog down the proceedings with excessive detail that may not be of much interest to readers who aren’t hospital administrators themselves; for example, there are several scenes just about upgrading hardware in the mental health unit. That said, the sections in which Phil works out solutions to the issues that face him are often engaging. The fact that these moments sit side by side with scenes detailing administrative conferences about body wipes and parking spaces, however, makes the book read more like a hospital-engineering troubleshooting manual than a novel, at times.
A sometimes-intriguing but longwinded look at day-to-day hospital life.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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