Pamela Barrett Jul 04, 2013

did not like it 's review

When I’m going to review a book, I don’t read other reviews, so that they don’t color my opinion. I do read what the publisher or editor sends out, and what the book cover synopsis states about the author and story. But in this case I wish I had read something more, so that I could have been cautioned about what this story was really about. I thought I was getting an adventure story about a young doctor and an anthropologist, who discover a lost tribe in the jungles of an island; based on a true story and similar to some books I’ve read.



My first clue that something ugly might be inside, was in the first few pages, before the preface, where there were some quotes (supposedly) from The Associated Press, and Reuters stating that the doctor (in later years) was arrested for rape, statutory rape, and endangering a minor. But after reading the preface by another doctor I thought maybe it was a false accusation. The second inkling I had that this was going to a dark disturbing place, happened in part 2 where he is starting medical school, experimenting on animals and conveying a complete lack of empathy in the suffering of the mice, dogs, and monkeys. Again I excused his behavior given the time period and the context of “all for the greater good of medical discoveries” that medical students and lab workers are exempt from; but this lack of empathy was a revealing look into his moral character. Then in the middle of the book, when they were finally in the jungle and made contact with the tribe; a child is raped, in a ceremony, as the doctor watches, observing, detached and justifying it as part of their culture. Enough already, this was sickening, and it makes me wonder about what publishers and editors consider “fresh new voices” and the best book of 2013; and why author’s who have choices in the retelling of a “based on a true stories” have to go to this depth of graphic detail. I’m doing something I hate doing, because I love books, but this one is going to the dump. It gets 1 star, because I have to give it something.



