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Holistic Guidance - More Than It Hurts You
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $16.47
Your Save: $ 8.48 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780525950707
ISBN: 0525950702
Label: Dutton Adult
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: 2008-06-19
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Studio: Dutton Adult
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Editorial Reviews:
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The acclaimed author of Chang and Eng returns with a literary showstopper— a beautifully realized novel that at its heart is the story of a woman who will risk everything to feel something; a doctor whose diagnosis brings her entire life into question; and a man who suddenly realizes that being a good husband and a good father can no longer comfortably coexist.
Josh Goldin was savoring a Friday afternoon break in the coffee room, harmlessly flirting with coworkers while anticipating the weekend at home where his wife, Dori, waited with their eight-month-old son, Zack. And then Josh’s secretary rushed in, using words like intensive care, lost consciousness, blood. . . .
That morning, Dori had walked into the emergency room with her son in severe distress. Enter Dr. Darlene Stokes: an African-American physician and single mother whose life is dedicated both to her own son and navigating the tricky maze of modern-day medicine. But something about Dori stirred the doctor’s suspicions. Darlene had heard of the sensational diagnosis of Munchausen by Proxy, where a mother intentionally harms her baby, but had never come upon a case of it before. It was rarely diagnosed and extraordinarily controversial. Could it possibly have happened here?
As their four lives intersect with dramatic consequences, Darlene, Dori, and Josh are pushed to their breaking points as they confront the nightmare that has become their new reality. Darin Strauss’s extraordinary novel is set in a world turned upside down—where doctors try to save babies from their parents, police use the law to tear families apart, and the people you know the best end up surprising you the most.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Frustrating Read
Comment: Coming from a pediatric background.I expected a better read. I found a plot that jumped all over the place.So many pieces of information were never developed. What was developed was just not possible. The system does not work that way. I kept reading hoping it would straighten itself out. The heart of the story. Munchausens was never really explored. It sadly happens. More than the book implies. I expected alot more
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good premise; unlikeable characters
Comment: I was looking forward to reading this book but found that the author developed too many nonessential characters. I found even the essential characters to be so unlikeable that the book didn't keep my attention. It was long and, after a while, grating.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the most boring books I have ever read!
Comment: I picked up this book thinking it would be a great book but all i found was a boring book that I had to force myself to finish hoping it would get better. The author was all over with this book. He wrote of characters that you could careless about and had zilch to do with the story. Don't waste your time with this one. I would have enjoyed a harlequin romance better!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Story Needed Great Editor
Comment: More Than It Hurts You is a fascinating story about Josh and Dori Goldin (golden?) and how the charmed world as they know it changes when Dori is accused of harming their child by Darlene Stokes, an African-American doctor who is a single parent. Unfortunately, at least for this reader, the book loses its focus and what could have been a great novel with careful editing meanders all over the place.
I won't give a synopsis of the plot as other reviewers have done a great job of summing it up. Strauss's strength is his characterization--Dori, Josh and Darlene come off as believable and it is easy to empathize with all three of the main characters whether you understand their motivation or not. Even the secondary characters: the Goldins' lawyer, Darlene's self-sacrificing mother and her recently found father are interesting, although I found myself wanting to get back to the main characters. The topics of parenting, racism, marriage and gender in the workplace are handled subtly and brilliantly.
The main problem for me is that More Than It Hurts You seems to be two novels in one. There are endless asides and product placement that are more of a distraction than an evocation of place and time. Unlike, say, Philip Roth's American Pastoral, a sense of a particular time was not felt by this reader and the mention of numerous popular products and stores makes the novel seem dated already. Strauss does a great job of describing Josh at work and how his career in sales and his personality define him but his lengthy descriptions of the workplace and the Upfront convention seem like a rehash of other novels and the television show The Office. This detracts from the far more compelling story of the competing worldviews of the Goldins and Dr. Stokes and the plot that Strauss has set up. After following the characters throughout the novel and really caring about what happens to them, the ending seems tossed off much too quickly for any true resolution.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a writer...
Comment: Darin Strauss is a unique voice in contemporary fiction. As a writer, I had to resist highlighting every brilliant metaphor and passage in this gorgeous book, lest my book be covered in pen. Like his two previous novels, "Chang and Eng" and "The Real McCoy," "More Than It Hurts You" is a real page-turner, a book you won't want to put down. The portraits Strauss paints of new parenthood, marriage, the suburbs and race are simply unforgettable. I just hope we won't have to wait as long for Strauss' next novel as we did for this one -- but don't get me wrong: it was worth the wait.
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