This book is a gem, but I think only those who have been through medical training will enjoy (or understand this). I've read in other reviews readers' frustrations with the "aimless" nature of the book or the author's nihilism. As a career changer and medical student who is constantly feeling out of place in medical school this book strongly resonated with me. Being a medical student is a bizarre form of purgatory, going through so many things that don't seem relevant or useful at the time but are required because they were required of past generations. Dr. DeForest skillfully examines many of the bizarre, sterile, cruel, and un-human rituals that medical trainees are forced to go through (and make patients go through).

Rating: 2.5

This unconventional novel initially read like an autobiographical record of a young woman's medical training. However, for this reader at least, as the pages turned, the book became increasingly frustrating: nihilistic, fragmented, and difficult to follow. It was only minimally less exasperating and slightly more comprehensible than A K Benjamin's recent The Case for Love.

A History of Present Illness is an intense, demanding book. Barely over a hundred pages, it feels a great deal longer. While sharply observed and thought-provoking at times (critiquing many aspects of medical training and culture), for the life of me, I cannot say what the author was ultimately attempting to achieve.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

This book was interesting but I don't think it was for me. It felt very clinical and impersonal but I also think that may have been why the book was styled this way.

Sharp, surprising, and beautifully written, this isn't your average doctor novel. A recommended purchase for most collections.

By crafting A History of Present Illness as a novel rather than a memoir, Anna Deforest provides a creative and compelling departure from the popular model of introspective medical memoir meets social commentary.

We initially join our narrator reflecting on her white coat ceremony and, as such, her introduction to life as a medical student. From this point onward the novel winds and jumps somewhat unpredictably through her youth, her later medical training, and her present reflective moment. The common threads of topical reflection and her experience with one neurologically declining patient, Ada, represent a faint narrative path as she explores her past and inner life against the context of the biased, demanding, and often heartless experience of medicine.

The prose alternates between beautiful and overly affected. It seems crafted to set a tone of ambivalence and passivity for the narrator, an approach that later serves to emphasize the stronger, starker reflections subtly presented at surprising moments. The writing style becomes more refined in the latter half of the novel but feels poorly conceived and even confusing in the first chapters. The overall narrative style is interesting; however, the delivery could use some refinement to avoid nonsensical and wandering moments that could turn off unforgiving readers.

Pick up this novel if you enjoyed When Breath Becomes Air or Educated: A Memoir and the idea of these topics dropped into a creative narrative arc appeals to you. I look forward to what comes next from this author.

My gratitude goes out to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for access to this advance review copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

A History of Present Illness is a novel that meditates on the process of becoming a doctor, the state of medicine today, and the unnamed narrator's life. It is filled with gorgeous prose, but ultimately does not lead much of anywhere. The novel is written very recursively, which is typically a style I enjoy (particularly when paired with the kind of gorgeous prose on every page of this novel) but there is no sense of build or arrival, only quiet little story after quiet little story. There's no moment of catharsis or realization, and we never really find out what happens to the narrator. There are novels written in similar forms (for example, the novels of Jenny Offill), but these see the characters grow and develop, giving us a slow-burn story that pulls us through the narrative.

Although I have no idea how the narrator's experience might be connected to the author's, I think that, if there were any similarities, A History of Present Illness may have worked better as a memoir, in the style of Maggie Nelson's Bluets or The Argonauts, but as it stands it's not quite experimental enough to sustain the lack of story or character arc.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown, and Company for this advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.