Mmm - I have mixed feelings. I enjoyed the read (and finding out how he would kill all the patients), but I didn’t like the main character much so I didn’t find myself rooting for him to succeed. Also the reveal at the end felt a bit strange to me. It felt a bit unnecessary.
Overall, it was a quick and easy read.

Not a book I'd get overly excited about but it is readable.

The storyline follows Ed Teak, son of a beloved doctor, husband to a media obsessed wife, father to one smart child and one struggling with authority, ADHD and schoolwork. Ed is also the CEO of Little Falls Hospital. Its not a job he loves but (apart from the patients and their icky illnesses) he's good at it.

However on the horizon is Modern Healthcare who take over failing hospitals, apply jiggery pokery algorithms and turn it around. They also usually offer existing CEOs a fine golden handshake. Ed wants out, Sam wants a pool and all that's standing in their way is some very high maintenance patients who bounce back with alarming regularity, costing the hospital a fortune and who may well scupper the deal.

With this in mind Ed begins to plan a way forward but will he have the guts to go through with it?

The story is okay and does pick up in the second half. Some editing of the first half would be better as it does tend to meander a little. None of the characters is particularly likeable (or memorable) but Ed does love hos mum so whatever he gets up to, he is most definitely not all bad. I would also say that the end really surprised me.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance review copy.

2.5 Stars. The premise of this sounded super interesting and I was excited about it as my husband is a nurse. This book turned out to be just a CEO doing horrible things just to get some extra cash for the business (hospital). Some of this book, I was super bored and other parts I found very intriguing and kept me continuing to finish it out. I don't know, this novel just didn't do it for me sadly and the ending was honestly pretty disappointing, in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of this book.

Tucked away in a small town is Little Falls Hospital, run by the drug addicted and downright miserable CEO Edward Teak. The hospital itself is on life support with newer more desirable health systems cropping up nearby, an endless run of patients not paying their bills and run down equipment. Edward Teak is ready to call his time as CEO at Little Falls Hospital and must improve the bottom line in order to sell it to an interested party. The plan he devises is a deadly one leading him down the path to murder, all for a large severance package. Little Falls by Will Werner is a fictional dark satire releasing November 7th 2023.


As a nurse myself, I thought the premise of this book was interesting however the execution didn’t land precisely. Some of the humor seemed geared towards health professionals which may go over the general reader’s heads. Werner made his main character so truly unlikeable that I often thought about not finishing. He seemingly hates his wife, his kids, his mother and all the cards life have dealt him. I did not want to root for this character’s outcome and frankly I was desperate for him to fail because he really was that obnoxious. Werner is long winded in his writing, dare I say too many descriptors and run on sentences that would make every grammar maniac cringe. Some of the descriptors used were downright nasty and tried too hard to achieve a dry humor that instead it just fell flat.

While I enjoyed the premise and finished the book fairly quickly, I would only give Little Falls by Will Werner 2/5 stars. I really wanted to enjoy this as a medical satire but the book itself needs CPR or at least an editor.

I'm sorry, but I DNF'd this book at 30%. I can forgive an unlikeable MC, but this one seems to revel in his shittiness. He seems to actively hate everyone in his life, including his wife., coworkers and even his mom. There's no redeeming traits to him at all.

The first person narrative often gets bogged down in run on sentences of honestly unnecessary details. I know it's a sort of stream-of-consciousness, but many of these details seemed to be in an attempt at dry humor. It was honestly really difficult to read. I think that if the story was told in third person, it would cut down on the stream-of-consciousness writing, and the reader could get the story they signed up for.

A very brief review…I really cannot read anything written in the first person. I checked half way and the end and it stayed the same. Very few authors write in this way and I have never understood the reason, if written to convey immediacy for a short while by an extremely able writer it can have a place.
Tahnk you Netgalley for the A.R.C.

I went for this book hoping it would be a dark comedy, but sadly it was missing the comedy element. The main character, Ed, witters on altogether to much, so I must admit to skim reading large portions of the book due to that, and there are long descriptive sections where nothing if not happens, which makes the book seem too long. With a good editor the book could be half the length, and twice as interesting

This book follows a CEO of a small town hospital who is drowning in his circumstances and needs help to get out. He assess the situation and determines a quick but quirky plan to get himself out.

It read like I was in the MC's mind and I can hear his inner voice. The slow pacing was perfect for that 'inner voice' writing because there were times where he was just blabbering, just like our minds typically do, though sometimes it is also the drawback of the book because there were parts that could've been easily shortened or not added in the first place. There were times when I would gloss over certain passages because the MC was just really blabbering. For me, this book could've been 100+ pages shorter. I also noticed that the humor was similar to Fox Animated Shows' humor. Considering this is an ARC, there were several grammatical and typographical errors.

Little Falls
by Will Werner

EDWARD TEAK was so wordy he made me delay the ending. Good grief, the humor, and oddness.I am afraid the book was just poor jokes and long-winded for me.

3 stars

This was a fun book with good humor. However it was a little long winded and a bit slow for my taste.

I was intrigued by the premise but had put the book aside after the Jeffrey chapter. I understand the social commentary behind the writing but the blatantly fatphobic views of the lead character were too difficult for me to stomach.