Cutting for Stone
First book in a while that I didn’t enjoy and left me with negative feelings. Things did not go well from the very beginning: the story could have easily proceeded without the interminable first 120 pages—nothing happens that we don’t already know about. And I while I grant that it is a book centered on the lives of surgeons (something I did not know when it was recommended to me), some of the surgery scenes veer from detailed descriptions to unnecessary gore. I also never felt particularly good about the protagonist: he is portrayed often as weak, or at least always uncertain, and yet this same person is strong enough to flee a war-torn country and put himself through medical school. It just didn’t add up. In the end, I feel like the author started with the idea of the story’s climactic scene (no spoilers!) and then wrote the narrative in reverse to fit that unique sequence. Maybe that’s what all authors do, but here it felt obvious. Do not recommend.