Monday Mornings

I can't decide if two stars is generous or just right for this book.

The idea of a novel about high powered doctors and medical mysteries/disasters is an interesting one and I think I'd like to read a good book on the subject instead of this rushed one.

I know that "Monday Mornings" is being produced as a TV show and knowing that this novel totally reads like a screenplay idea. There are tons of BIG BOLD characters with BIG BOLD traits that they keep telling us about and they are all doing BIG BOLD things! Guess what? Did we tell you that they are SUPER SMART and NEVER MAKE MISTAKES but wait? There was a mistake? NO WAY?! Not by one of our team of heros.

YAWN.

If we learned about the doctors slowly and chose who to like and dislike and then show more became invested in some of their stories and their patient stories (like we might be able to do over a full TV season) this would probably have really entertained me. Instead I just found it annoying. Especially in the final quarter when I was actually laughing out loud at some of the ridiculous (and completely predictable) turns in the plot. OK, as I type I am revising my review down to a single star.

Verdict: pretty terrible as a book but I am going to watch the episode of the TV I have taped to see if it's any better. I think it really does have some potential as a rival to Grey's Anatomy. show less

I expected nothing less from multi-talented Sanjay Gupta - CNN's chief medical correspondent and the author of 2 non-fiction books, as well as a practicing neurosurgeon and, now (!), an accomplished fiction writer. For me, the appeal in this book was in its objectivity and in restoring respect to medical profession at a time when one often hears cynical and narrow-minded remarks to the effect that doctors are just money-making machines... Mr. Gupta certainly drew from his own experience as a neurosurgeon - thus deep insight into the lives and personalities of his protagonists doctors, describing them just as they are - human beings with strong principles and incredible knowledge and skills, yet also prone to mistakes and faults like show more anybody else, except in their case mistakes can cost lives and lead to unimaginable soul-searching and doubt in one's abilities. An excellent debut novel, I hope he writes more. show less

Monday Mornings is about a group of six doctors in a fictional hospital called Chelsea General. These doctors come from all walks of life. There is Dr. George Villanueva, a divorced former NFL player with a young son whom he has nothing in common with; Dr. Tyler Wilson, a hotshot neurosurgeon whose ego gets in the way and costs a young boy his life. Dr. Tina Ridgeway who comes from a legacy. She's in a loveless marriage, has an affair with Dr. Wilson, and finds more comfort in working at a free clinic than at Chelsea.

Dr. Sung Park is the oldest with the most amount of experience having two surgical residencies under his belt. He's a workaholic but a medical ailment may cause him to see there more to life than medicine. Dr. Sydney Saxena show more has forsaken any semblance of a personal life for a chance to become Chief of Surgery. They all for under Dr. Harden Hooten, the Chief of Surgery and his Morbidity and Mortality. It happens every Monday mornings at 6am.

I was really surprised in how much I really enjoyed this novel. Honestly, my opinion was clouded on how boring the show on TNT was. I thought it was well-paced and through. Dr. Sanjay Gupta gave me some interesting insight to those M&M conferences. Those M&M conferences are ingenious! Surgeons learn from each other's fatal mistakes. I liked the characters except for Ridgeway. I felt that she was selfish. I really liked Saxena and Park. I admired their work ethics. show less

Monday Mornings is about a group of six doctors in a fictional hospital called Chelsea General. These doctors come from all walks of life. There is Dr. George Villanueva, a divorced former NFL player with a young son whom he has nothing in common with; Dr. Tyler Wilson, a hotshot neurosurgeon whose ego gets in the way and costs a young boy his life. Dr. Tina Ridgeway who comes from a legacy. She's in a loveless marriage, has an affair with Dr. Wilson, and finds more comfort in working at a free clinic than at Chelsea.

Dr. Sung Park is the oldest with the most amount of experience having two surgical residencies under his belt. He's a workaholic but a medical ailment may cause him to see there more to life than medicine. Dr. Sydney Saxena show more has forsaken any semblance of a personal life for a chance to become Chief of Surgery. They all for under Dr. Harden Hooten, the Chief of Surgery and his Morbidity and Mortality. It happens every Monday mornings at 6am.

I was really surprised in how much I really enjoyed this novel. Honestly, my opinion was clouded on how boring the show on TNT was. I thought it was well-paced and through. Dr. Sanjay Gupta gave me some interesting insight to those M&M conferences. Those M&M conferences are ingenious! Surgeons learn from each other's fatal mistakes. I liked the characters except for Ridgeway. I felt that she was selfish. I really liked Saxena and Park. I admired their work ethics. show less

Monday Mornings is about a group of six doctors in a fictional hospital called Chelsea General. These doctors come from all walks of life. There is Dr. George Villanueva, a divorced former NFL player with a young son whom he has nothing in common with; Dr. Tyler Wilson, a hotshot neurosurgeon whose ego gets in the way and costs a young boy his life. Dr. Tina Ridgeway who comes from a legacy. She's in a loveless marriage, has an affair with Dr. Wilson, and finds more comfort in working at a free clinic than at Chelsea.

Dr. Sung Park is the oldest with the most amount of experience having two surgical residencies under his belt. He's a workaholic but a medical ailment may cause him to see there more to life than medicine. Dr. Sydney Saxena show more has forsaken any semblance of a personal life for a chance to become Chief of Surgery. They all for under Dr. Harden Hooten, the Chief of Surgery and his Morbidity and Mortality. It happens every Monday mornings at 6am.

I was really surprised in how much I really enjoyed this novel. Honestly, my opinion was clouded on how boring the show on TNT was. I thought it was well-paced and through. Dr. Sanjay Gupta gave me some interesting insight to those M&M conferences. Those M&M conferences are ingenious! Surgeons learn from each other's fatal mistakes. I liked the characters except for Ridgeway. I felt that she was selfish. I really liked Saxena and Park. I admired their work ethics. show less

I was a big fan of ER when it aired, and this read like an episode or three of the show -- especially Park's GBM. Hello, Mark Greene. I felt the characters had good depth and grew appropriately attached to them, I especially liked El Gato.
I felt Gupta rushed the end and tried to tie up everything too quickly and the time line skipped around a little too much -- Tina was attacked on the same night Gato broke up a fight between her attacker and his gf several chapters before? Overall, a nice, light read and I'd read more alone these lines.

This novels seems more like non-fiction as it outlines some behind-the-scenes situations at a teaching hospital. The hospital is really the main character and is the most fully developed, while the personalities exist within the framework of their professions and relationships among each other. Nonetheless, this is an interesting glimpse of a world most of us don't get to see.