Emergency Room by Caroline B. Cooney
Release: July 1st 1997
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Source: Amazon
Synopsis:
College freshmen Seth and Diana volunteer in an emergency room to learn how to save lives — and along the way, they learn to live
Seth volunteers at City Hospital to get first-hand experience with emergency medicine — and get comfortable with blood and trauma before attending medical school, so he’ll have an edge over the competition. Diana volunteers in the inner-city ER to save the world, one patient at a time. If she gets to show up arrogant Seth too, so much the better. The one thing these two college freshmen share is a desire to be a part of the ER’s action. Tonight, hour by hour and minute by minute, they will get their wish as they confront a student with a gunshot wound, the victim of a gruesome motorcycle accident, and a kidnapping gone horribly awry. Their adrenaline-fueled night will alter the course of Seth and Diana’s lives — and the lives of everyone in the emergency room — forever.
Emergency Room Review:
I usually hate giving negative reviews because I know the time and effort spent in writing, publishing etc. is not easy. But as a reader, I have to say that I hated reading this book!
Back in the day, I loved watching medical dramas like ER, and I feel like the author wanted to write a book reminiscent to it. In the beginning, the story has a lot of potential as there are multiple characters introduced and you wonder how it is all going to get connected.
Unfortunately, the story goes all over the place and is a big disappointment. Firstly, multiple plots and characters are thrown in the story and no conclusion is provided for most of them. Sure, there are some high adrenaline scenes like when Dunk takes Roo’s baby hostage. But other than these short moments, nothing really happens that we don’t know about a hospital. Similarly, there are characters like Anna Maria who get a lot of focus, yet we don’t get to know what happens to them.
The main characters Diane and Seth are also so clichéd and I didn’t like them much. They are completely superficial and want to become doctors, but are lazy to even be volunteers. Moreover, they don’t do anything for the most part and suddenly realize that being in the medical field is tough. Also, I did not understand why there was so much buildup in Diane trying to find out if Richard Searle is her father. What a surprise, even that plot did not have any positive outcome and leaves the reader hanging.
The only character I was remotely interested in and felt bad for was Alec. I felt sorry for him and wished he was more prominent to the plot. His plot was somewhat standalone and not related to the drama of the hospital. Meggie, Barbie and all the other hospital staff are completely boring and forgettable. Overall, “Emergency Room” by Cooney is not worth reading even if you are a fan of medical drama.
