I enjoyed this book for the most part...lots of good psychology refreshers for me and a good little plot twist. And...the author is a neurologist...I find that awesome.
I do have a few small complaints though...I feel like the characters could have been developed more and the ending felt completely rushed like the deadline was on and it needed to be wrapped up asap.
Anyway...on to the synopsis of the story...and this is going to be brief and rushed because it's basically all you need to know.
Dr. Zoe Goldman is a psychiatric resident dealing with her own bullshit and her own psychiatric issues. She's got ADHD in that can't sit still and OMG SQUIRREL kind of way so she's on Adderall. She has a weekly uncomfortable couch session with her therapist (and by that I mean the couch is literally uncomfortable...not some taboo psychiatrist/patient sex thing going on) in his nautical themed office (douchebaggery) to discuss her birth mother having died in a fire and her adoptive mother having early onset dementia to the point she is already in an assisted living facility. Zoe was given a newspaper article regarding the fire, a picture of her and her birth mother (supposedly), and the obituary of her birth mother. She also is now having a dream that she hasn't had for at least 10 years so it's all got her wondering about her birth mother. Her own mother is a dead end due to the dementia so she tries dream rehearsal and hypnosis, but those lead to no answers at all. She's also got this shitty mathematician French ex-boyfriend who has moved away and can't decide if he still wants to be with her or not so he's stringing her ass along and she's letting him even though there's a super hot nurse named Mike who is all about her. So...she's got all of this shit going on, plus she's supposed to help other crazy people...
Enter her newest patient, Sofia Vallano who has been in institutions for years because when she was an early teen she killed her mother and stabbed her brother in the eye. Good night...
Long story short, Sofia is bat shit fucking crazy, claims her dad raped her and her mother let it happen but she apparently doesn't remember this until her long lost brother (with one less eye) comes to visit. He's such the spitting image of dear old dad that is just kicks all of these traumatic memories back into play. I call bullshit you crazy bitch. But, she can't seem to remember killing her mother...but she remembers stabbing her brother...kind of. Again...I call bullshit.
Anyway, when all is said and done, Zoe learns that the picture of her and her birth mother is some other woman and her daughter, the article about the fire and the obituary are fake, but the only mother she really needs to care about is the one who adopted her and went through all of this trouble to protect her. Because the truth is....SOFIA IS HER SISTER! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!! When Zoe was little her psychotic sister killed their mother and stabbed their brother while he was trying to protect Zoe. Zoe was adopted by the social worker who handled her case while her brother went to foster homes until he was old enough to get out of the system. Of course, Sofia tries to kill her ass upon revealing all of this but she makes it out alive and Sofia is still bat shit crazy. Zoe breaks up with Jean-Luc (the mathematician French ex-boyfriend) because he's an overall asshole and actually gives things a shot with Mike. Yay happy endings.
So yeah...big plot twist was Sofia. It all happened relatively fast and while I should have seen it coming I didn't. I did enjoy the psychological terms and the drug names though because that shit is all in my interest areas. This book was a fast little read with a good plot twist so if Block puts out another book, I'd probably pick it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment