Also go check out the Facebook page.  www.facebook.com/institchesbook  Leave them a comment saying Heather Finley sent you.

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Prologue: The Face in the Ceiling

What a pair. Double D’s. Poking up at me like twin peaks. Pam Anderson, eat your heart out.

Too bad they’re attached to a fourteen-year-old boy.

I ease the black marker out of my lab coat pocket and start drawing on my first surgery patient of the day. Phil. An overweight African-American boy. Phil has severe gynecomastia—in layperson’s language, ginormous man boobs. Poor Phil. Bad enough being fourteen, awkward,

and a nonathlete in a tough urban Detroit school. Now he has to deal with breasts?

Two weeks ago.

I sit in my office with Phil and Mrs. Grier, his grandmother. Phil lives with his grandma, who’s raised him since he was ten, when his mom died. He’s never known his dad. Mrs. Grier sits on a chair in front of my desk, her hands folded in her lap. She’s a large woman, nervous, well dressed in a light blue dress and matching shawl. Phil, wearing what looks like a toga, sits on a chair next to her. He stares at the floor. “It happened fast,” Mrs. Grier says. “He shot up, his voice got deeper, he started to shave.”

She speaks in a low rumble. She looks at her grandson, tries to catch his eye. He can’t see her. He keeps his head down, eyes boring into the floor.

“Then he became quiet. Withdrawn. He would spend more and more time in his room alone, listening to music. He would walk around all day wearing his headphones. Seemed like he was trying to shut out the world.”

Mrs. Grier slowly shakes her head. “Phil’s a good student. But his grades have gone downhill. He doesn’t want to go to school. Says he’s sick. I tried to talk to him, tried to find out what was wrong. He would just say, ‘Leave me alone, Nana.’ That’s all he would say.”

Phil clears his throat. He keeps looking at the floor.

Mrs. Grier shifts in her chair. “One day I accidentally walked in on him when he was drying off after a shower. That’s when I saw . . . you know . . . them.”

Phil flinches. Mrs. Grier reaches over and touches his arm. After a moment, he swallows and says in a near whimper, “Can you help me?”

“Yes,” I say.

I say this one word with such confidence that Phil lifts his head and finds my eyes. He blinks through tears.

“Please,” he says.

The night before Phil’s procedure.

I can’t sleep. I lean over and squint at the clock on the nightstand. I twist my head and look at my wife, deep asleep, her back arched slightly, her breath humming like a tiny engine. I exhale and study the ceiling.

A shaft of light blinds me like the flash from a camera. My mind hits rewind, and I’m thrown backward into a shock of memory. One by one, as if sifting through photographs, I flip through other sleepless nights, a string of them, a lifetime ago in medical school, some locked in the student lounge studying, some a function of falling into bed too tired or too worked up for sleep. Often I would find myself staring at the ceiling then, the way I am now, talking to myself, feeling lost, fumbling to find my way, wondering who I was and what I was doing. The memory hits me like a wave, and for a second, just as in medical school, I feel as if I am drowning.

My eyes flutter and I’m back in our bedroom, staring blurrily at the ceiling. I see Phil’s breasts, pendulous fleshy torpedoes that have left him and his grandmother heartsick and desperate. I know that his emotional life is at stake and I am their hope. I know also that isn’t why I can’t sleep. I blink and see Phil’s face, and then I see my own.

I was Phil—the outsider, the outcast, the deformed. I was fourteen year-old Phil.

I grew up one of two Asian-American kids in a small town of near wall- to-wall whiteness. In elementary and middle school, I was short, shy, and nerdy. Then I shot up in high school. I became tall, too tall, too thin. I wore thick Coke-bottle glasses, braces, a stereotypical Asian bowl-cut hairdo, and then, to my horror, watched helplessly as my jaw began to grow, unstoppable, defying all restraint and correction, expanding Pinocchio-like, protruding to an unthinkable, monstrous size. I loved comic books, collected them, obsessed over them, and as if in recognition of this, my jaw extended to a cartoon size. I was Phil. Except I grew a comic-book jaw while he grew National Geographic breasts. Like Phil, I only wanted to look and feel normal. I just wanted to fit in.

It hits me then.

My calling—my fate—was written that summer between high school and college, the Summer of the Jaw. My own makeover foreshadowed my life’s work. Reconstructing my jaw showed me how changing your appearance can profoundly affect your life. Now, years later, I am devoted to making over others—helping them, beautifying them, changing them. I have discovered that plastic surgery goes beyond how others see you; it changes how you see yourself. On occasion, I have performed procedures that have saved lives. I believe that I will save Phil.

My mind sifts through my days in medical school, and in a kind of hallucinogenic blaze, I conjure up every triumph, every flub, every angst-filled moment. I remember each pulse-pounding second of the first two years of nonstop studying and test-taking, interrupted by intermittent bouts of off-the-hook partying. I see myself in years three and four, wearing my short white coat, wandering through hospital corridors trying to overcome my fear that someone—an administrator, a nurse, or God forbid, a patient—would confuse me for a doctor and ask for medical attention. I teetered a hair’s width away from those moments that might mean life and death, facing the deepest truth in the pit of my stomach: that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. And neither did any of my medical-school classmates, those doctors in training who stumbled around me.

But things changed. Thanks to my small circle of close friends, my focus, work ethic, and drive to succeed, I slowly grew up. I entered medical school a shy, skinny, awkward nerd with no confidence, no game, and no clue. I came out, four years later, a man.

A smile creeps across my face. My eyelids quiver. I catch a last glimpse of the face of my younger self in the ceiling as it shimmies and pulls away. Sleep comes at last.

Phil’s surgery goes well. Ninety minutes, no complications. I lop off his breasts with a scalpel, slice off the nipples, then suture them back onto his now flat chest. I nod at his new areolas. They have decreased in diameter from the size of pie plates to quarters. I leave Phil stitched up and covered with gauze, a normal-looking high school freshman. Good news, Phil. You will not break new ground and become the first male waiter at Hooters.

I once saw an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in which a character suggested that she—and every doctor—experienced an “aha moment” when she realized she had become a doctor. That never happened to me. I experienced an accumulation of many moments. Some walloped me, left me reeling. Others flickered and rolled past like a shadow. They involved teachers, classmates, roommates, friends, family, actors playing patients, nurses, the family of patients, and patients themselves, patients who touched me and who troubled me, patients whose courage changed my life and who taught me how to live as they faced death, and of course, doctors—doctors who were kind, doctors who were clueless, doctors who were burned out, doctors who inspired me and doctors whom I aspired to be, doctors who sought my opinion and doctors who shut me down.

Thinking about all these people and moments, I see no pattern. Each moment feels singular and powerful. They stunned me, enveloped me, awed me, but more often flew right by me unnoticed until days, weeks, months, years later. Until now.

Medical  school. 

Something I can honestly say I know nothing about beyond the first season of Grey’s Anatomy so when I was asked to review a memoir about it, I couldn’ t wait to get my hands on the book.

In Stitches by Anthony Youn tells the story of a Korean-American boy that grew up being told he had to be a doctor.  He had to do perfect in school.  He had to be successful  and most importantly, he had to make money.  A quite mother and a strict father made growing up hard but even harder was dealing with his peers, especially the opposite sex.  The book follows Youn through college (still struggling with the ladies) to medical school (where he has to find his own path while making his family proud).

The first part of the book focused mainly on Youns’  home life, medical problems (jaw problems that eventually lead him to corrective surgery), and of course his struggle to interact with girls.  Previews for this book seem to compare it to Tucker Max and made it sound like this part would be hysterically funny. Overall, I found this part slow and more sad than anything else.  I think someone that was more into heaartfelt memiors would enjoy this part but personally I just wanted to get to the juicy stuff.  Even the chapters about his first few years in college felt this way to me.

Then Youn started medical school.  Just like I had assumed when I decided to accept this book for review, I was completely entralled with this part of the book.  First of all, I didn’t know anything about the structure of medical school.  The first year involved classes which is what I assumed most of medical school was.  Turns out second year it is problem solving with actual actors.  People actually get paid to let second year medical students stick there hands…well you get the picture.

The third year and fourth year were by far the most interesting parts of the book for me.  Third year students do rounds in several different fields and fourth year they focus on what exactly they are going into.  In Youn’s case, he opted for plastic surgery. The third year part had some funny and some sad stories. I would have liked to hear more of those.  The plastic surgery stuff, especially the last part in Beverly Hills was the stuff I just ate up.  Honestly, I would love to see Youn write a second book that goes more in depth on plastic surgery. 

Overall, I ended up liking this book.  Like I have already mentioned, I would read a second book from Youn if he decides to write one.  His writing is fun to read. I checked out his blog http://www.celebcosmeticsurgery.com/ after reading the book and found that interesting as well.  I’d recommend this book to anyone curious about medical stuff or who enjoys memoir writing.

Thank you so much to Sneak Attack Media for sending me this book.

The beginning of the book was a little slow. It was a lot of seeing what was going on with each character emotionally. Many of the characters were plotting or trying to make hard decisions so it was not a lot of action for a while.

However after the event that made me cry (not going to say what but if you read it you will know what part I’m talking about), the action speed up. Once it got going, this book was impossible to put down. I think I read the second half in one night. The biggest part that drew me in was wondering what the heck was up with Kalona. Is he good? Is he bad? We saw hints of it before but now there is even more conflicting actions.

Story wise, I think the book seemed a little bit like it was setting up for something more intense to happen in the next book. Sometimes I’m bothered when books feel that way but this still held my attention and made me want more.

The one thing that bugged me while I was reading was the shift from first to third person perspective. I understood why the Casts wrote that way but it always took me a second to adjust so made the reading a bit bumpy.

Overall rating 4/5

Favorite Quote

“If it has tires or testicles, it’s gonna give you problems.”

After the ending of Firestorm, it was hard not to stay up all night and go straight to Thin Air.  With the cliffhanger ending, I could not wait to see what exactly happen to Joanne.  From the very start the book was full of action and mystery. 

Throughout the novel, Caine used other people’s views to give us (and Joanne herself) perspective on how other people saw the main character and her actions.  It was such an interesting way to tell a story.  Especially because we had already seen some of the scenes from other sides.  Also we got a richer history of her connection with other people without being overpowered with flashbacks.  I loved seeing the story this way.

Another part I liked about this story was that there was a shift of who was fighting with Joanne.   We got to see much more of Venna for example.  She seems like she would be a very fun character to write.  There is so many sides to her personality yet she is so straight forward.

Overall rating: 5/5

The funny thing about this series is that I want to savor every single book.  I know there is only three more until the series is over and I wish it kept going.  You know a book is great when you feel that way.  At least there is still Outcast Season and a new series that Caine reported on her YouTube channel will come out later this year.

Speaking of YouTube, here is the video in case anyone didn’t see.  Go subscribe! Heck, tell her you were sent there from my website. 

Thank you everyone for reading! Leave comments. Let me know if you love the Weather Wardens as much as me.

That being said, I LOVED the book.  It was what it was.  It entertained me and made me laugh with all the candid and trashy situations that came up.   It was a very cute book overall.

First off, this is fiction.  Going in I thought it would be fiction as in really close to what really happen to her at the shore.  That was not the case by any means.  The stuff that happened in this book was so ridiculous and obviously not true that I laughed so hard. Yes, some of the stuff was kind of taken from other films and such but it was still funny.  Edward trying to date Bella?  Really? Too funny.

The main character Gia, was definately based off of Snooki herself.  Bella also seemed to be based on Jenni but I’m not certain how much.  That character was dealing with bad boyfriends so not sure if Jenni has that problem or not.  As for the male characters, and there was plenty of those, they seemed to be based on sexual fantasies.  Again, so funny.  So many lovable characters in the book that I can’t wait to see what they do in the next book. 

Plot wise, the book was nothing groundbreaking.  Girls looking for love and getting stuck in funny and sometimes bad situations.  It kept my attention though and was a fast and enjoyable read.  What else can you ask for in a book by Snooki?

Overall rating- 4/5 stars

Favorite quotes:

“It’s too cutesy, right? Might work for blond sorority girls.  But we’re Italian ball breakers.  We’re…lethally brunette.  No self-respecting lethal brunette would bend and snap.”

The series revolves around Tory Brennan and a few of her friends.  They are all outcast they live out on an island while their parents work on another island.   The same island and scientific site was seen in Death du Jourif I remember correctly.  I want to say that Tempe took her daughter there but I can’t remember. Anyways, the kids stubble upon a secret experiment that involved animal testing on a wolf dog cub.  After saving the cub they suddenly start to realize that something is going on with them.  New powers, check? Scary people after them, double check?

The book started out with a bang and never seemed to stop. I could barely put it down.  Even though Tory was only a freshman in high school, Reichs made her very smart.  Actually all the friends were the smart nerdy types which gave the book the same intresting learning feel that we see in the Tempe books.  When something was going on, one of the kids would explain it to the others.  I loved that it was written on a young adult level without having the feel of a young adult book.  It did not feel like it was filtered down for a certain reading level or anything like that.

Another thing I loved about the novel was that it had multiple storylines going.  There was the question about what exactly was happen to Tory and her friends, what exactly the testing was for, plus a cold case murder. Every part of the story had me wanting more so I would read and read trying to get to the next little piece of the story.

Overall this was a great read. I would highly suggest this book to anyone looking for something a little different.  If you are into urban fantasy or young adult books, I would say this is right up your ally.  Personally I can’t wait to see what happens next in the series.  This is for sure going to be a series that I pick up every book the day it comes out.

No, I’m definitely in love with Tucker Max.

Yes it is true.  Go ahead and say whatever you want but in my mind, the man is brilliant.  His writing style is funny, honest, and very well executed.  From start to finish I was laughing and could barely put the book down.  I also went to a book signing but what to comment on that in a separate post once I have the video I took online. 

In case you don’t know who Tucker Max is, basically he is a guy that sleeps with a lot of girls and enjoys being the life of the party even if that means being a giant asshole.  His honest account of what happen makes the stories really come to life.  He even is not afraid to poke fun at himself.

I feel like I could go on for hours about how much I loved this book but instead I’m going to highly recommend it to everyone that is not overly sensitive and has a sense of humor.   Here are comments on a couple of stories that I especially loved.

Tucker Goes to Campout, Owns Duke Nerds
This is the first story in the book and instantly I was sold. Basically there is a large school event that lots of people have to camp out at so he gets drunk and uses a megaphone to harass people. For some reason I find the idea of a drunk guy with a megaphone insanely funny.

The Tucker Max Experience
Somewhere along the lines, Max was asked to put together a date with him that people could bid on.  His bullet points on what the date would be was hysterical.  His proposed date would include…

-I will answer the door in a white T-shirt with at least one hot sauce stain on it, gym shorts, messy hair, unshaven, reeking of pit sweat, stale alcohol, and fresh sex.

-Depending on how many beers I’ve had, I may repeatedly point at my crotch and nod approvingly. This is what I call “a hint”.

-By the time we get to the fourth or fifth bar, I will be completely shit-housed, will have stains on top of stains on my shirt, there may or may not be serveral whores trailing us, vying for my attention, and at least one of my friends will have told you that you are too good for me and should love him because he is such a wonderful person. (FYI: He’s a hater and a liar.)

-When you get home, you will regret ever meeting me.  If we had sex, you will rush to the free clinic to get tested.  The results will come back negative, and you’ll think to yourself, “At least the fact that he passed out a minute into sex has some benefit”.

Um sign me up, lol.

I Want to Cum Get a Load!
This was actually a whole section in that book that in my mind, makes Max the most brilliant man alive.  Why?  Because he got girls to do his laundry for free for years and slept with most of them.  I’m sorry but that is awesome beyond words.

He posted on his facebook that he wanted to meet a girl that would do his laundry for him and he got offers nonstop.  He offered sex in return and the girls took him up on it.  Classic.  Like I can’t go over how awesome that is. Go ahead and call it sexist or whatever but these girls came over on their own free will so he is in no way responsible for their actions. 

Can I steal this idea?  Half kidding.  But if I was dating someone I would totally offer certain things in return for not doing chores.

Tucker Max: Baby Killer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Dead babies aren’t funny but jokes about them sure are.   This chapter was mostly about his comments about abortion.  They made me laugh, a lot.  Reminded me of an old interview with Senses Fail where all they answered back was comments about dead babies.

So yeah, a few favorite of the favorites. Awesome book.  Don’t read it if you will get offended.  Enjoy it if you have no soul like me.  Completely joking.  Actually referring to an old Daniel Tosh joke about putting in horrible jokes because you can’t take them away from people that were born with no souls.

So since Rachel Caine is due to be in Portland the end of October, touring for the newest book in The Morganville Vampires series, I decided to pick up all the books and attempt to get through them all before the new one.  There is currently eight.  I’m positive this isn’t going to be a problem because so far, they are hard to put down.

In Glass House we meet Claire.  The sixteen year old college student is tormented at school so moves off campus and find out how scary the town really is.  The story was fairly high action which made it a fast read.  I definately did not see the ending coming at all. 

The second book involved some bikers, one that happen to be the father of Claire’s rommate Shane, rolling in and trying to take out all the vampires.  Again, this was a high action book.  Caine keeps giving us hints about Claire being very important to the vamps for some reason so that makes it super easy to want to go straight into the next book as well.

The books so far just have a tiny bit of romance.  I like that was is there seems very age appropriate.  I realize this is a young adult series so I actually really like that Caine has the boys be concerned with Claire’s age.  It is kind of refreshing after seeing so many YA books where sex is a big deal and ends up happening.  I’m aware that I’m early in the series and it might end up happening but so far I like how Caine is portraying teen sex.

Caine’s take on vampires isn’t anything entirely new but there is points that make the story different.  There is a lot of mystery behind the main vampire so I’m excited to see what will come of that.

Okay, I think this didn’t end up as short as I was going for.  Oh well.  I just started in on Midnight Alley so expect another review soon.

First off, I definately loved actually spots in Vegas being central parts of the book.  I can picture the exact fountain that starts the whole mess with Pamela, Artemis, and Apollo.  The way she described the inside of the Forum Shoppes is dead on.  They are tacky but have a charm of their own.  The beauty of the dersert was described elquently as well.

I was suprised when I started reading to realize that these books are in fact in a certain order.  Up until the mention of Persephone, Hades, and Lina, I had thought that each book was independent of the others.  If I remember right in the second book there was a tiny mention of the first but I thought it was more of a tongue and cheek kind of thing.  I loved Lina in Goddess of Spring so it was fun to see her again.

Pamela was an interesting character. I like that Cast makes each of her girls very strong females but sets them apart from each other.  They each had very different outlooks on love.  CC was young and naive and ready to have a first true love.  Lina had grown up without love and made a perfect life without it so was surprised when it came.  Pamela had been hurt bad in the past but was learning to move past it.  Pamela was very real in that she was fall for a minute then logic would take over making her question things.

The thing that bothered me about this book was how Apollo acted for the first half.  He was just too much.  Too over the top with trying to win her love.  I get what the point of having him be that way was but after a while I had trouble reading the parts of him being lovey dovey.

The second half however was much more enjoyable.  Apollo became more down to earth and started to seem more realistic.  Artemis was so funny and enjoyable to read during the second half too. I absoluted loved her. 

My favorite quote from the book actually came from Artemis early on.  She says…

“Their Gods are Gucci, Prade, Versace, Escada, Visa, and Mastercard.”

This reminded me so much of American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  It was such a perfect quote for Vegas too. 

Taking a break from PC Cast for a bit to get caught up on Rachel Caine but can’t wait to read Goddess of the Rose.  I know when I saw PC Cast she mentioned that she was making it into a movie.  It sounded like it was one of her favorite books that she has written.  She also mentioned that a lot of the ideas for rooms came from students so I’m very interested to see what that means.

*********Warning, contains major spoiler from City of Glass*****************

Where should I start with this?  As you can tell from other stuff I have posted, I was extremely excited for this novel.  Honestly, it lived up to my expectations.

I guess I’ll start with the characters.  When the novel first started I was worried that Tessa, Jem, and Will would turn into a love triangle similar to Clary, Simon, and Jace.  Although the triangle part started to emerge, there was a whole different dynamic to it.  Both boys start to have crushes on Tessa but there is no rivalry between them.  Right now they are so close as best friends that they are honestly like brothers.  It almost felt like they both love the other so much that they would be willing to give up the girl to the other.  Does that make sense?  I could honestly see Will telling Tessa to be with Jem because in Will’s mind, he is the better man and I could also see Jem having exactly the same thought process towards Will. Their brotherhood definitely comes first.

Speaking of Tessa and Clary, they are definately two different characters.  I loved that Tessa thought very much like I would think a girl in 1878 would.  She was careful to be proper and believed that women had a certain role. In was interesting to see her in contrast with Charlotte.  By the way, when they make this movie, can I please be Charlotte?  I love her!  Her character had so much depth and interesting things going on.  She was forced to be the head of the household because Henry was off with his machines yet that role seems to be what she truly loves and is meant for.  She is a very strong character that has to deal with people looking down on her decisions. 

As for the boys, how can anyone not find Jem mysterious? He is such a nice, sweet guy as well. Then of course we have Will.  Will did remind me a lot of Jace but that actually made perfect sense.  If you have read City of Glass, you know that Jace’s real father is actually Stephen Herondale.  In otherwords, Jace is a distance realitive of Will’s.  Guess the attitude runs in the family.  There is also a lot of mystery around Will. What is he off doing when he wonders the city? What is the story with his family?  And the very end of the book?

It was also fun to see Magnes Bane of course.  Personally, I was excited to see Church show up.  Clare wrote on her twitter that it is in fact the same Church from The Mortal Instuments. Also on her twitter, she explained further, “The amount of questions I am getting regarding Church astounds me. (SPOIILERY) Church is an immortal, magical cat. Being used in a necromantic ritual made him immortal. He is also smarter than the average cat. He is however still a cat.& he is the same cat in TMI.”  Hmm, I can’t wait to get the entire story.  I also really want to go back and figure out where we see Tessa in City of Glass.

The style this novel was written in was very interesting.  Clare’s website states that she tried to incorporate elements of steampunk.   She gives us a story set in a historical setting yet pulls in modern ideas like robots.  Usually I find fiction set in the past hard to read but Clockwork Angel made it feel a lot more like a modern story that just happen to involve high society, fancy dresses, and horse drawn carriages.  I’ve been reading a lot of urban fantasy lately so this was similar but added in a completely new setting.

On a personal side note, I just started writing a book in the style of urban fiction.  It is very interesting and challenging to bend the world to include elements that you are creating. I’m having lots of fun with it so far.  So much respect goes out to authors like Clare that have not only done it but done it so well that the world comes to life in such an amazing way.

Everything about this book made me want to not put it down but on the other hand savor the entire thing. Sad I have to wait so long for the next installments.  In case I haven’t said it enough, I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book.  Keep up the great work Cassandra!