The Fault in Our Stars

In May of this year, I completed an earlier book by John Green called Looking for Alaska.  I had lukewarm feelings about that book.  This book, The Fault in Our Stars, received rave reviews and I was on the library waiting list forever and a day.  Finally it came in for me this week and I devoured it in two days.  Hands down, for me, this book trumps Looking for Alaska ten-fold. As I was reading the book, I already told myself that I would re-read it one day.

I don't want to give too much away, but the story is about two teens who are both cancer survivors. They meet at a support group and their story goes from there.  The fact that there is cancer involved should tell you that there are going to be some rough patches. If you are a parent, you will cry when you read this book.  If you aren't a parent, you might cry too or at least get a little misty eyed.  While I didn't cry, there were some moments when my emotions were being tugged in several directions.  My disclaimer is that since I work in pediatrics, it takes a lot for me to cry when I hear pediatric stories.  I get too wrapped up in the medical.  Fair warning though, the "tear-jerker" factor of this book is pretty high.

Speaking of emotions, I think I really enjoyed the book because of the emotional maturity of the main characters.  Green doesn't write about teens who play the victim. They are very observant and astute.  They read literature and have existential thoughts about it.  Whenever I read a book that was written for a young audience and find that the characters are smartly portrayed, I breathe a sigh of relief.  The girl isn't playing dumb and coy and the boy has more going for him than looks.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and think it deserved the wonderful reviews.  I may have picked it up from the public library, but I think it's worthy of purchasing for my personal library.

Yes, Chef

I heard about Red Rooster a while back, but have never been.  I'll be back up in NYC next weekend taking my mom to see a play so I figured we could check this place out for dinner. I only vaguely knew that the chef who revitalized Red Rooster had written a memoir.  I remember hearing about it, but just putting the book on my 'To Read' list, not racing out to get it. Since my mom is coming up soon, I finally grabbed a copy of the book from the library and read it.

As a memoir, the book is really good.  It's well written and Samuelsson does a good job describing memories through food.  His recollections of food are often vivid and colorful. His recollection of his adopted family and his struggles as a black chef are heartfelt.  He really tries to dissect what makes him tick and why he has the drive he has. I found myself really enjoying the story.  Then he gets to the part in his life where he has a one-night stand and the woman gets pregnant. She keeps the baby and Samuelsson pays child support.  However, he voluntarily does not meet his daughter until she is fourteen years old.  I couldn't wrap my head around that.  He gives a couple of reasons for this, but honestly I couldn't see it. I mean damn, really dude? Not even for, like, one holiday? Or right after she was born? Or one birthday in fourteen years?  Or hell even just her first birthday?  For fourteen years?  I found myself feeling quite sad for his daughter and the pain she went through growing up. When he finally does meet her, it's bittersweet for both of them. He put in thousands and thousands of hours towards cooking, and that helped him contribute financially to his daughter, but my wish for him is that he mends that personal relationship because the part that money can't buy is damaged.

That didn't make me enjoy the book any less; it just made me kind of sad for him.  If you consider yourself a foodie and love vivid descriptions of falling in love with food, pick this up.  Just realize that he really does put it all in this memoir and it's not just about food. It's also about sacrifice, personal relationships, family, food security, travel, and a little bit of politics. Even though I felt a bit saddened by his absence in his daughter's life, it does not diminish the good writing and the flow of the story.  It just goes to show that no matter how successful one becomes, there is always a struggle.

Walden on Wheels

I count myself as one of those who is frugal.  Some of my co-workers will tell you that I can't go a few days without mentioning how getting out of debt is my top priority in life.  I hate how owing someone money makes me feel.  So when I came across this book and read the brief description I put it on hold at the library immediately. While I was waiting for it to arrive at the library I downloaded the free sample to my Kindle.  Initially, based on the sample, I thought it would be a decent read, but I wasn't running to the library to pick it up once notified about its arrival.  So much for me judging a book based on a free sample, because I should have gone and picked this book up the minute it arrived.  I realized I was hooked this past Wednesday when I spent the majority of my day off voraciously reading the first 200 pages of the approximately 300-page book.

The book is a true account of the author, Ken, who initially has $32,000 of student debt after earning his undergraduate degree. This staggering amount makes him very uncomfortable and he proceeds to aggressively pay it off over the next few years.  In the process of paying everything off, he goes to Alaska and works a variety of grunt jobs that teach him a lot about life, nature, consumerism and capitalism (all of which he discusses very well). He vows to never go into debt again. The story takes an interesting turn when he decides to return to graduate school.  Keeping to his vow about zero debt, he buys a van and lives in the van during his entire graduate school experience. The book covers it all perfectly. A parallel story also develops about his best friend who owes $62,000 in student loans but follows a different, more arduous path in order to pay it off. His friend's story is, in some ways, the typical story that most of us are living but afraid to admit.

I loved this book, because of the inspirational tone.  At this point in my life, it was a message I was ready to hear and open to receiving.  I am motivated to continue to aggressively pay my own debt down as well.  I'm not quite at the point where I would live in a van, but I respect the author for sticking to his newfound values. The book was also pretty funny!  I wasn't expecting that and found myself laughing unexpectedly on several occasions.  I enjoyed the book so much more than I expected. Actually, this is one of the best books I've read this year. Also, if you want to read a book about finances, but don't want a book that feels too much like economics, this is it.

The Good Nurse

I am a nurse by trade so I was sickened by this story and I have a lot to say about it.  It's the true story of a nurse named Charles Cullen who, over the course of his sixteen-year career, murdered and injured hundreds of patients. This man was very disturbed and also had multiple known suicide attempts.  He would attempt suicide just enough to get some medical attention and maybe go to a psych facility, but never enough to actually get the job done.  It was always a cry for help, because if he were serious he would have just shot himself in a strategic location.  Being a nurse, he would have known what to do. This man clearly needed a LOT of psych help that he did not receive.

I was uncomfortable reading this story because I just cannot fathom doing harm to a patient.  There were multiple times in the story when I would pause and just think "How can he be okay doing this to people?" and "What the hell is wrong with this dude?" Honestly, when I have to give a medication at work, I'm breaking out the calculator and making sure that the dose is right several times before I even give it.  We even have rules in place where certain medications have to be checked by more than one nurse so multiple people check the dose several times before it reaches the patient.  This guy was BLATANTLY putting insulin in normal saline bags, loading syringes with overdoses of digoxin and injecting the heart medication right into the patient without a second thought, overdosing patients on medications that paralyze the body.  It was crazy!  I have always had a difficult time understanding mental illness.  I understand that the body and brain can experience such severe stress that one can 'just snap', but this guy was cold and calculating.

What really made me angry was that hospitals were not held accountable for their hiring practices.  All this was going on from the late 1980s until around 2003 in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, so it's fairly recent history.  He was able to continue to get jobs!  He worked at at least NINE DIFFERENT HOSPITALS. I started nursing in 2008. At that time we had to get fingerprints, a background check, a drug test and more.  At the time, I thought all that testing was standard for nursing. Come to find out, it was all implemented after this guy was caught and convicted!  Maybe if these protocols were in place back then he would have been either caught earlier or not allowed to enter the field of nursing in the first place.  However, with his mental illness, he may have still found a way to harm people.

As a side note, there is currently no 'national' nursing license. Nursing is regulated state by state.  This is a problem. I am a huge proponent of a national nursing license.  Charles Cullen was able to go from New Jersey to Pennsylvania because each state requires a different license so he could easily hold a license in both states and they may or may not communicate with each other about his questionable history. A lot of nurses have multiple licenses, especially if you live in a 'tri-city' area that covers multiple states like NY-CT-NJ or DE-MD-VA or NJ-DE-PA.  Even I hold a license in two states because I live in a 'tri-city' area.

The book is very well written with accurate sources and footnotes that cite those sources. The author does an excellent job of making the reader think about several hot button topics like mental illness, hospital transparency, patient rights, patient safety, hospital safety, and hiring practices.  I thought more about my career while reading this book than I have since being a nurse.  I've never been exposed to the underbelly of it and I think that's why it made me uncomfortable and incredulous.  That's why it stuck with me. I love my job and can't imagine anyone being in this field and behaving the way this guy did. This book will stick with me for a while.  If you're in the health field, I highly recommend it.  Even if you're not in the health field, I think it would still be an interesting read.  Not good for the beach or vacation, because you may be sad or enraged afterwards.  Save this one for Fall/Winter.

Paris was Ours

I'm starting to think I'm just a little biased when it comes to books about Paris. I'm starting to wonder if I only like them because I loved my trip there so much.  I think moving forward all my reviews about books regarding Paris should be taken with a grain of salt. It's kind similar to when parents think their kids can do no wrong, but everyone else thinks they are brats.  I wonder if I love Paris and books about it, but everyone else thinks it's all crap.  Hmmm....well anyway, I loved this book!

This is a collection of thirty-two essays written by writers who have each had their own varied experiences in Paris.  Each writer makes their essay their own individualized account of Paris as they know or knew it.  What I enjoyed about it was that it wasn't always a love fest. Some writers were not as smitten with Paris as others.  Some longed for home and were only in Paris because of wars ravaging their homeland or politics that had pushed them out. Others were very much in love with Paris.  Nobody was ambivalent about it.  It was interesting to see how a Parisian experience can change someone's view of the world and of himself or herself.  I took my time with this book.  It could have easily been a quick read. The essays are short enough to breeze through, however I suggest you sit down on a quiet weekend with some coffee and maybe a soft flaky croissant and take the time to slowly absorb the stories.