While the love between the couple shines through, and the book will likely move readers to tears, one of the most interesting aspects of Tsesis’s memoir is the depiction of U.S. healthcare. Tsesis compares the US Healthcare system to that of the USSR, where he practiced in his early career as a pediatrician. While the US healthcare system is not without its faults, Tsesis compares it favorably to what he found in the eastern bloc. Tsesis’s descriptions of each course of treatment, and the side effects of each treatment, are clear and concise.
“Despite all my education and my skeptic mind, a part of me believed in miracles, and I sincerely believed that Marina would escape the premature tragic outcome from her menacing disease,” Tsesis writes. But he knows not to offer readers false hope, instead offering a clear-eyed account, with a doctor’s perceptive eye, of Marina’s remarkable strength and resilience—and what she meant to so many. The narrative momentum at times slows for detailed descriptions, and readers might wish the main narrative addressed grief and loss more thoroughly, as the epilogue presenting ten principles that helped Tsesis in the aftermath will leave readers wanting more.
Takeaway: A doctor’s tender, life-affirming account of his late wife’s long years facing cancer.
Great for fans of: Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, Sherrell D. Mims’s I Will Wait Until Morning.
Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-