Customer Reviews

Shock

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(34)
1 star:		(101)

 

 

I own and have read every one of Robin Cook's books, some several times. They are riveting, exciting and well written.
With Shock, I was in shock. Here are two female post grads from Harvard, no less, with newly acquired Doctorates in Economics and Microbiology. Then in comes Laverne & Shirley. How Cook expected to pass this off as a well written mystery beats me, the two girls giggled, argued, made a mockery out of average intelligence(to wit, the first and only day on the job, like no one noticed they took 1/2 hour breaks every hour, met at the water fountain and disappeared with no notice) and it was supposed to be a medical mystery. The only mystery is how he managed to keep a straight face as he wrote it. Would not recommend it at all. Unless you get it free or on loan, but remember, I told you so.

How low can he sink? Robin Cook's new medical thriller, "Shock," is shocking in only one respect. How can an author with Cook's reputation write a book so hackneyed, wooden and lacking in suspense as this one?

The protagonists are Joanna Meissner and Deborah Cochrane, two beautiful and brainy doctoral students. Yet, for all of their intellectual prowess, these two women see nothing fishy in an advertisement in the "Harvard Crimson" for egg donors. The ad offers forty-five thousand dollars to every egg donor that the clinic accepts.

Naively, the two women go to the Wingate Infertility Clinic, and they donate their eggs. They women take a glorious trip to Italy with their newfound wealth. Over a year later, they decide to look into the fate of their donated eggs by finding employment in the Wingate Clinic and doing some snooping. Joanna and Deborah predictably find out that the Wingate Clinic is engaged in some very questionable and unethical research. Will the ladies be able to get the authorities to help them before they are captured and killed by the nasties who run the clinic?

Joanna and Deborah are two of the most ridiculous sleuths that I have ever seen. They are like two overaged Nancy Drews, coming up with one presposterous plan after another. Their dialogue is stilted and silly and their behaviour is immature and inane. Deborah dresses like a hooker to avoid being recognized at the clinic and her ridiculous getup becomes a silly recurring joke. The book peters off at the end and Cook offers no real resolution to the asinine plot.

The premise of the book, namely that fertility clinics are the ideal setting for reproductive chicanery, has been done before many times. Cook breaks no new ground here. "Shock" is witless, dull and without any literary merit whatsover.

Predictable medical thriller about two young women who agree to donate some of their eggs in return for a hefty sum (ostensibly to help infertile couples). Though they are nervous, the procedures go well and when they get their checks, they promptly take off for a year in Italy together. Happy go lucky. La la la.

During that year, though, they begin to get curious about whether or not their eggs ended up being viable. So, as soon as they return to the States, they put in a call to the clinic to ask if any of their eggs were successfully transplanted and turned into babies. As you'd expect, the clinic is completely unwilling to release this information. Completely contrary to what you'd expect (from two Harvard Ph.D.'s), the girls decide to commit about eight different felonies in order to steal that information for themselves. Okay, now, sure -- most women would love to know whether or not they are fertile before it comes time for them to actually start trying to have children. But how many of us would rob, steal, trespass, and commit fraud to find out? I mean, for Pete's sake.

Anyway, of course they end up finding out the clinic is actually up to no good. Human cloning and blah blah blah. I found it ironic that when they tell a doctor friend of theirs what the clinic is up to, he responds pretty nonchalantly to the whole story -- he's probably read this story a thousand times before too, huh? Pretty much the only TRULY interesting part of this book was when one of the clinic patients went into a dressing room named "Dorothy Stevens" (p. 57) and came out of it minutes later named "Dorothy Washburn" (p. 58). Gasp! What did those mad scientists DO to her in there? (...)

I won't go so far as to say that this was a horrible book. I don't feel that I've read enough of Robin Cook's novels to be able to make that statement fairly. However, I do know that I spent 340 pages of reading being fairly entertained, and then 12 pages being SORELY disappointed. To say that this novel ran out of steam is an understatement of DRASTIC proportions. Even with a sequel planned for this story, I have trouble comprehending that his editors let him get away with this ending. Keep this one at the bottom of your pile and definitely get it from the library!

I hadn't read any books by Robin Cook previously, but my husband was (note the past tense) a big fan, and he was so appalled by this book I felt I just had to read it. It was not worth the effort - no, I take that back, it is quite good for a laugh. I see from other reviews that anyone with any experience in any of the technical areas mentioned in the book has been amazed by the lack of knowledge/research - and I'll add my piece. Since when do data entry clerks care or know about operating systems and hardware - and what on earth is the statement about direct access to the server if 'I were having a problem I couldn't rectify from my workstation keyboard' supposed to mean? If anyone I was thinking of employing started asking these questions I'd terminate the interview straight away - obviously a hacker in the making!

Add to all this inaccuracy the bizarre female characters (he kept saying 'the women' all the time, as if even he didn't believe in them), a muddled plot, and then, of course, the lack of an ending - it all contributes to a book you find hard to believe anyone would ever publish.

The only SHOCKing feature of this book is how this poor example of a medical mystery could have Robin Cook's name on the cover.
After forcing myself to read this through to the end, I was more disappointed than I ever recall being with any of Cook's stories.
Save your money - and your time.

After numerous delays, I'm glad that Robin Cook's latest finally made it to the bookshelves. It wasn't quite worth the wait.

When Deborah Cochrane and Joanna Meissner, two college grad students, decide to sell their eggs, it seemed like a good idea, after all it paid 45,000 dollars per person. This money would be enough for them to get a condo, and travel to Venice for a year to work on their theses. The Wingate Clinic, which offered the money, performed this procedure in an afternoon, with apparently no problems.
A year down the road when they return from Venice, Joanna becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her eggs, even though this went against the agreement with the clinic. Well of course Deborah had to help her obsessed friend find out. Big mistake. One of many to come.

Cook's latest medical thriller is not quite up to par, and not what I would expect from him. In the medical thriller genre, there are quite a few authors that can provide a better book than this (Palmer, Gerritsen). I had no compassion at all for the protagonist's of this story. Deborah and Joanna's ideas for breaking into the clinics computers or disguising themselves for employment made it hard to believe they were college graduate students. When committing felonies, one does not leave so much evidence as they did. Two clueless characters. This timely and controversial subject could have been written with much more depth and adventure. I wonder if this was actually written by Cook, and why is there a ten-year-old picture on the jacket and not a newer one?
Lightly recommended for the die hard Cook fan.

With all the good stuff coming out in paperback this month, don't feel too bad if you pass this one up until later. Although the pace was sufficiently fast to keep me turning pages, it seems Cook was resting on his laurels here and not expending too much effort.

For Harvard doctoral candidates, the two main characters are pretty dippy. And as an aside here, the post-laparoscopy description is WAY off - trust me, I've had one, they hurt. Quite a bit. The gas does not get absorbed in an hour. Especially if - well, no, I'm not going to be a spoiler here, but anyway, I don't know of anyplace that'll let even outpatient surgery patients drive themselves home, especially only a couple of hours later. (IANAD so I could be wrong, but I have been through it on the other side.) And really, thesis writing in Venice? Strange touch. Most grad and post-grad students I know (including myself) would pay off their loans pronto. And even if rich Joanna didn't have any, working-class Deborah must have. Okay, enough with the unreality reactions.

Even the writing is weak - redundant verbiage, several blatant typos (there's a HUGE difference between a laparoscopy and a laparatomy - just compare the scars), and some jarring dialogue that snapped me right out of the storyline saying "Huh? Who talks like that?"

The concept is freaky enough to hold interest, however, and as the "shock"ing discoveries pile on and the pace picks up things do get better. Unfortunately the end is first stereotyped ("____ will help us!" Yeah, right...) and then abruptly truncated. Unless he's setting up a sequel, I'm tempted to believe this novel was churned out under severe time pressure without a lot of care put into it. For fans (and I admit, I am one) it's not a total waste of money, but new readers would be advised to start with one of his earlier, stronger efforts - Chromosome 6, say, which deals with a few of the same issues only fresher, more exciting, and all around a better read.

While the story wasn't the greatest, I as the reader/listener really got to know its 2 heroes. These women were likable even if their situations were laughable. At points the plot was predictible. But after hours of dialogue, medical terms and wise cracks, Cook betrayed his readers by not knowing how to end the book.
So what happened to each of the players is the question and do the bad guys really get away with murder?

What a wasted investment of time. Luckily it wasn't a financial waste since I borrowed the book from the public library.

Being a big Robin Cook fan, I was very dissappointed in his latest book "Shock". Usually he is on the cutting edge of what is happening in medicine..not this time. The story is slow and it failed to make me care about the characters or their mission. Definitely wait for the paperback on this one.