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Didn't Get Frazzled
David Z Hirsch, author
Adult; General Fiction (including literary and historical); (Market)
A rousing, witty novel about four years in the life of an intrepid young medical student, set in the grueling world of an elite NYC medical school.
Medical student Seth Levine faces escalating stress and gallows humor as he struggles with the collapse of his romantic relationships and all preconceived notions of what it means to be a doctor. It doesn’t take long before he realizes not getting frazzled is the least of his problems.
Seth encounters a student so arrogant he boasts that he’ll eat any cadaver part he can’t name, an instructor so dedicated she tests the student’s ability to perform a gynecological exam on herself, and a woman so captivating that Seth will do whatever it takes to make her laugh, including regale her with a story about a diagnostic squabble over an erection.
Didn’t Get Frazzled captures with distressing accuracy the gauntlet idealistic college grads must face to secure an MD and, against the odds, come out of it a better human being.
Plot/Idea: 8 out of 10
Originality: 8 out of 10
Prose: 7 out of 10
Character/Execution: 9 out of 10
Overall: 8.00 out of 10
Assessment:
Hirsch's novel follows Seth Levine through four years of medical school as he grows in knowledge, forms strong peer friendships, and grieves over lost love. The witty first-person narrative moves at a nice clip, and the story feels like a true account of the medical school experience, but doesn’t lose the reader with too much medical jargon. The novel's greatest weakness is occasional passages that are too expository. However, this is well offset by its greatest strength, the demonstrated growth of its protagonist into a capable, empathetic professional.
Date Submitted: June 17, 2016