Michele Harper

I love medical memoirs. I gravitate toward them by default, so when this one showed up on my radar, it was a no-brainer. Harper's story is poignant and at times heartbreaking: exactly what you'd expect from a memoir written by an ER doctor who spends part of her career working for a VA hospital in Philadelphia.

There's also a deeply spiritual bent in Harper's storytelling that I didn't expect but fully appreciated. Her spirituality is non-traditional (she mentions the goddess a handful of times), but that's exactly that made it so appealing. I hadn't realized how much it would touch my soul to see my own spiritual beliefs reflected back at me in a mainstream book by a highly-respected doctor.

Although the dialogue was at times stilted and Harper's turns of phrase occasionally awkward and convoluted, there's also so much beauty in this book. In the writing, in the storytelling, and in the deeply human stories of love and loss.… (altro)