Review & New Release – The Graceview Patient by Caitlan Starling
Synopsis
Misery meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this genre-bending, claustrophobic hospital gothic from the bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.
Margaret lives with a rare autoimmune condition that has destroyed her life, leaving her isolated. It has no cure, but she’s making do as best she can—until she’s offered a fully paid-for spot in an experimental medical trial at Graceview Memorial.
The conditions are simple, if grueling; she will live at the hospital as a full-time patient, subjecting herself to the near-total destruction of her immune system and its subsequent regeneration. The trial will essentially kill most of, but not all of her. But as the treatment progresses and her body begins to fail, she stumbles upon something sinister living and spreading within the hospital.
Unsure of what’s real and what is just medication-induced delusion, Margaret struggles to find a way out as her body and mind succumb further to the darkness lurking throughout Graceview’s halls.
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Review
What is our healthcare coming to when people cannot get treatment for their issues? Do they have to resort to suspect treatments? The Graceview Patient is a look at how subjecting yourself to a clinical trial can be hazardous to your health.
This book moves at a very slow pace as we follow Margaret’s experience with a trial that is meant to tear down her immune system and reset it. But will it work? Is this research or reality? Were her experiences hallucinations, or was she really ill? And what was it about this hospital? Was it abandoned? Only used for this research company and their experiments?
I have mixed feelings about this book. I didn’t quite understand the plot, and because the story inched along, it did not hold my interest as much as other novels. But at the same time, it was an intriguing look into what our healthcare system holds for those with rare diseases, and what they must endure to live a life much like many of us.
The ending was rather abrupt and did not wrap anything up. Perhaps this is leaving it open for a sequel? I wondered about Margaret and how she fared in the end. And what about the others with the same disease?
There is at least one nurse who tries to get Margaret to leave before anything happens, and when she doesn’t, she sticks around to try and make sure things go ok. But things don’t go as planned.
Some aspects of this book might have it fall into the horror category, but it didn’t feel like horror to me. It was more like a medical thriller, but not. I’m really not sure where to place this book.
This was a bizarre book, and we give it 3 paws up.
About the Author
Caitlin Starling is the nationally bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence, the Bram Stoker-nominated The Luminous Dead, and Last To Leave The Room. Her upcoming novels The Starving Saints and The Graceview Patient epitomize her love of genre-hopping horror; her bibliography spans besieged castles, alien caves, and haunted hospitals. Her short fiction has been published by GrimDark Magazine and Neon Hemlock, and her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare, Uncanny, and Nightfire. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.
