Elizabeth R. (esjro) -
I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The write-up for this book made me excited to read it, but what a disappointment! The book does not read like a coherent memoir, rather it is chapters about particular patient cases or uninteresting anecdotes from the author's life (e.g. he did not hang glide off a big cliff then felt compelled to lie about it). What is truly frustrating is that the reader never learns more than a few sentences about the people Dr. Shaw works with or operates on, so it is impossible to have any emotion invested in their stories.
The writing is very dry, and while I'm sure Dr. Shaw is excellent at what he does, he is not someone I'd like to have a beer with: he comes across as cocky and not a nice person to be around.
In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that I gave up on this book and stopped reading at page 100. I have no idea where the comparisons to Mary Roach and Atul Gawande come from........ a very creative marketing team?
The write-up for this book made me excited to read it, but what a disappointment! The book does not read like a coherent memoir, rather it is chapters about particular patient cases or uninteresting anecdotes from the author's life (e.g. he did not hang glide off a big cliff then felt compelled to lie about it). What is truly frustrating is that the reader never learns more than a few sentences about the people Dr. Shaw works with or operates on, so it is impossible to have any emotion invested in their stories.
The writing is very dry, and while I'm sure Dr. Shaw is excellent at what he does, he is not someone I'd like to have a beer with: he comes across as cocky and not a nice person to be around.
In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that I gave up on this book and stopped reading at page 100. I have no idea where the comparisons to Mary Roach and Atul Gawande come from........ a very creative marketing team?
