Anna DeForest

Rating: 2.5

This unconventional novel initially read like an autobiographical record of a young woman's medical training. However, for this reader at least, as the pages turned, the book became increasingly frustrating: nihilistic, fragmented, and difficult to follow. It was only minimally less exasperating and slightly more comprehensible than A K Benjamin's recent The Case for Love.

A History of Present Illness is an intense, demanding book. Barely over a hundred pages, it feels a great deal longer. While sharply observed and thought-provoking at times (critiquing many aspects of medical training and culture), for the life of me, I cannot say what the author was ultimately attempting to achieve.… (meer)