Heart Of the Matter

Heart of the matter is a New York Times Best-selling book, written by a Best-selling author Emily Giffin. This book portrays the themes of love and honesty. This book address women more than men. The idea and the conflicts are something more women would prefer to read about then guys.

           

           

            This romantic novel tells us the lives of three people. Valerie Anderson, Tessa Russo, and Nick Russo. Valerie is a single mother of a boy named Charlie. With the help of her brother Jason, they raise her son together. Jason is a homosexual and has a boyfriend named Hank who is a tennis instructor. Tessa Russo is the wife of pediatric surgeon Nick Russo. Together they have one daughter and one son named Ruby and Frank. Seven years ago, Tessa was going to marry one of her boyfriends named Ryan. The wedding was in three weeks, when one day she went on the subway and met the man of her dreams. I’d call it love at first sight because Tessa didn’t even know Nick’s name and they both knew that they were right for each other. Tessa broke off the wedding and married Nick.

            Charlie had an invitation to go to one of his friend’s birthday party. Valerie is always afraid something bad will happen so she usually doesn’t allow Charlie to go. The parents of his friend were nagging Valerie too much that she decided to let him go. At the party, Charlie accidentally fell into the bonfire and burned half of his body. Nick Russo was the best pediatric surgeon so he was assigned the case. After some time Valerie and Nick bonded and began to form a relationship. Valerie knew Nick was married but she couldn’t help it. Nick felt he wasn’t doing anything wrong because he wasn’t sleeping with her. After sometime, he slept with her once and regretted because he realized he still loves Tessa. He ended his relationship as nice as possible but still everyone was upset. He had to tell Tessa the truth and she forced him out of the house. Charlie was very heartbroken about the whole situation because he liked Nick a lot. He considered him his father almost. Now, he can’t see him and probably never will.

                        I didn’t enjoy this book as I enjoyed all the other ones. I thought that this book was longer than it needed to be. It felt like the author kept on dragging the story longer than it needed to be. The idea and the conflict were good. I wish though that thee story could have a happy ending rather than an unexplained one. At the end we are left to make conclusions. I feel very bad for Charlie, because he has no father and lost the closest thing to a father. I also feel bad for Valerie, she has struggled all through her life ever since she was in high school. She was the quiet and shy girl while her brother, Jason, was one the most popular kid in the school.  

            Overall, the book was okay. If you like romantic love stories than you will enjoy Heart of the Matter. Enjoy!!

Complications :Science/ Health book

Complication is a book written by Atul Gawande. Gawande is a New York Times Best Selling author. He grew up in Athens, Ohio and my parents know him and his parents very well. The novel Complications talks about real life cases that doctors deal with. Some cases may be about his family, others may be about his patients he encounters everyday and some are just about other physicians.

Each chapter is separated into different cases dealing with different situation.  I thought it was interesting when he talked about a doctor from Akron, Ohio. In order to try and protect peoples identities, Gawande uses Dr. X or Mr. Y to describe the person. This doctor(Dr. X) from Akron was one of the top surgeons and was greatly praised. He had done many successful operations, but towards the end of his career, he began doing unsuccessful operations. For example, if someone was suffering from severe abdominal pain, the doctor would just nothing is wrong and stop crying like a baby. This continued for almost ten years until one day, when one of his colleagues reported him in. Therefore, he lost his license and job.

Annually, doctors hold a convention in different cities. At these conventions, doctors present cases of mistakes other doctors made.  Gawande saw a doctor in a separate room giving a presentation about how doctor’s behaviors can be analyzed to suggest whether or not they are liable to proceed with their careers. Gawande observed the presentation and recommend that Dr. X go to this hospital. Dr. X was diagnosed with bipolar depression. He was unauthorized to work ,but after sometime of treatment he was allowed to do very minor jobs.

                Another case that I found interesting was about his children.  Gawande brings up an interesting question about how when you bring in an infant to the ER, everyone just assumes that the child has been abused. For example, Gawande’s child Hati was only a year old she was on the sofa when she fell off and her bone snapped. They rushed to the ER and the doctors and nurse just keep on asking how all this happened. Soon, the doctors believed  Gawande and let him off because of his career status. I would consider this a type of discrimination against families near the poverty line. Walker, the eldest son, has had heart problem ever since he was born. Gawande talks about how at one point, he could have operated on his son, but he wanted another doctor to operate and treat Walker. Gawande thought if anything went wrong then he didn’t want to be liable and live with the burden of his son’s death.

This book is a non-fiction book. This book is a bit out of my comfort zone so I would get distracted easily. Some parts I found interesting while others were boring. Overall, the book had good information and topics about the science. Some parts also describe cutting open a person for an autopsy or surgery. These parts can gruesome and bloody but what would you expect from a book written by a surgeon. Overall, if you need to read a scientific book that is non-fiction, I would recommend this book if you want a direct view of a medical career.