Signs I am recovering from the mysterious stomach flu/food poisoning are that I actually feel like reading is enjoyable again. Being sick did wipe out about a week of book-yearning though. Win. I feel like I am experiencing the same type of 'missing time' as the supposed abductees in the book on UFOs I recently read.
During my bed-ridden days in the last week, I didn't get to do much reading, though I got through most of Carol Topolki's 'Do No Harm', which is meant to be about a good doctor gone bad. I thus expected a trashy read that was somewhat entertaining. It wasn't as trashy as expected, though the 'madness' wasn't very cleverly conceived. The child's isolation was well-drawn, but as an adult, her 'imaginary friend' is such an obvious way to show the crazy. Split personality? Or just a lazy way to personify all the things wrong with her? I gave up just before the doctor went bad (and I am led to assume, maims patients in a way that messes with their reproductive abilities), so I cannot comment on the lack of subtlety in representing mental illness as the plot leads to its climax. There's something in the writing I found nauseating and exhausting - and not in an entirely good way. But because I never intend to finish it, I will never know if it was my illness or the book being simply mediocre.
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