Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness
Rita Charon

I tried very hard to finish reading this book, but I was unsuccessful.

It’s not as if the book wasn’t well written or well thought out, it’s just that I found it difficult to relate to.

The idea of Narrative Medicine is a great one: make the patient the center of their medical journey and not to treat them just as a patient but someone who has a life.

The problem I had with the book is that the author who was trained in both medicine and literary studies kept using examples from literary works – many of which (I would say close to 90%) I just wasn’t familiar with. And because I wasn’t familiar with the examples she used; I found the book to be very frustrating to read.

If a reader is grounded (or interested in medical narratives) and has a solid foundation in literature, you will definitely get more about this book than I would have gotten.

For the pieces that I did manage to enjoy, I rated the book 4/5 stars.

4/5 stars

Finished Reading: 12 November 2024