Host by Robin Cook

Host by Robin Cook
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 416

Publisher - MacMillan

Source - The Works

Blurb from Goodreads

The explosive new thriller from New York Times–bestselling author and master of the medical thriller, Robin Cook.

Lynn Peirce, a fourth-year medical student at South Carolina’s Mason-Dixon University, thinks she has her life figured out. But when her otherwise healthy boyfriend, Carl, enters the hospital for routine surgery, her neatly ordered life is thrown into total chaos. Carl fails to return to consciousness after the procedure, and an MRI confirms brain death.

Devastated by Carl’s condition, Lynn searches for answers. Convinced there’s more to the story than what the authorities are willing to reveal, Lynn uses all her resources at Mason-Dixon—including her initially reluctant lab partner, Michael Pender—to hunt down evidence of medical error or malpractice.

What she uncovers, however, is far more disturbing. Hospitals associated with Middleton Healthcare, including the Mason-Dixon Medical Center, have unnervingly high rates of unexplained anesthetic complications and patients contracting serious and terminal illness in the wake of routine hospital admissions.

When Lynn and Michael begin to receive death threats, they know they’re into something bigger than either of them anticipated. They soon enter a desperate race against time for answers before shadowy forces behind Middleton Healthcare and their partner, Sidereal Pharmaceuticals, can put a stop to their efforts once and for all.



My Review

Ooft the blurb from Goodreads gives away so much! Lynn is close to finishing her training and becoming a doctor. When her boyfriend is getting some minor surgery she recommends the hospital she is a trainee in, why wouldn't she it is a great hospital. However something goes wrong and Carl doesn't come round from the anaesthetic. Lynn and her fellow trainee Michael start digging and uncover worrying information. Soon they are threatened and can either let it go and save themselves, risking many innocents, or fight to protect their patients and uncover what exactly is going on with Carl.

I do like a book that makes you think or check out conditions so a medical thriller will always get a start straight off for that for me. However, there was so much going on that I didn't like. Lynn and Michael have a great friendship, very loyal and Michael goes out on a limb for her. However the dialogue at times is very boxy and forced it just didn't flow at times for me. There is an incidence of animal cruelty that that scene really wouldn't have been affected had they just omitted it, animal cruelty always gets a stars down from me particularly when it adds zero to the scene/story.

The whole how are for why, whilst original and something different it just didn't work for me overall. Too much of it I just sat and thought, really? Just no! I think some of it is really heavy on medical jargon/details which may switch some readers off, I actually didn't mind this although it was a bit heavy going at times.

The main character was really lacking in emotion at many key points where regardless of your job, with what had just happened with your partner, you would have an emotive reaction. On the other hand there were scenes her emotions almost blew what they were trying to accomplish, it just didn't work for me personally.

Interesting although disjointed in parts and I felt the ending came swiftly and let me asking if that was really how we were wrapping it up, sure many will be fine with it. 2.5 out of 5 for me this time, I would read Cook again, I did enjoy some aspects of the book however too much annoyed me that over shadowed the bits I did like.

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