Monday, May 20, 2013

Cure- Robin Cook

I'll admit, I had a hard time sticking with this book. I don't have as much time to read as I used to, but I still can manage to knock out a novel in a day or two max- this one took me a few weeks. It was a good enough story, with a decent plot line- but there were a couple of issues that definitely dampened my enthusiasm.
       First off, this book has a few moments where it gets fairly technical. A great deal of this book is about autopsies/medical examiners ( think BONES), and biochemistry. If you personally are familiar with morgues, morticians, autopsies, or biomechanics/ biochemistry, stem cells, iPS cells and such, you will have no issue understanding- but the author uses lots of terms and technical jargon that easily becomes tedious and was honestly over my head quite frequently.
      The second problem is like unto the first. This novel has heavy Japanese influence and uses lots of Japanese words, terms, places, etc, with little or no explanation to what the mean. I have read books like this before (Phantom of the Opera, Anna Karina, Three Musketeers, Man In The Iron Mask, Hunchback of Notre Dame (It took me years to realize that Monsignor was pronounced mish-your. Nobody tells children these things!)), and every time I find the experience very disagreeable because it honestly makes it very difficult for me to get a decent grasp on what is going on.
     The final thing was both a hindrance and an intrigue at the same time.The book alternately followed different characters- now this can definitely be interesting and add to the suspense- unfortunately I felt that there were to many different characters, with different stories, with names that were way to similar and  certain characters would disappear for several chapters and then just spring up, and it made the plot line very hard to follow. I also felt that at the end of the story, that not all the loose ends were tied up, and there were several stories that you never saw resolved, that simply had no conclusion. There also wasn't a satisfying end either.
      It was a good enough book, but I was kind of bored until probably about 3/4 of the way in, when things actually started to happen and I got very into it. I did like how the author had you rooting for all the different parties to win, even the bad guys.

Rating: 3/5    PG-13

Violence, Murder, Assassination, Robbery, Kidnapping, Money Laundering, Swearing, Death, Nudity (This is only in reference to bodies at the morgue, though there is some graphic description involving body mutilation), Organized Crime, Mafia

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