4 out of 4 stars
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Dr. Luke Brady was at one moment welcoming the new medical students at a medical school and in the next moment (actually five days later), he was waking up in the ICU at the very hospital of his employment. The change from being a doctor to being a patient was an eye-opener for Dr. Brady. In The Other Side of Silence by Richard Dew, this fictional story of a doctor’s whole life changed after having a stroke, leaving him unable to speak, was very realistic. It was so realistic that I had to check to see if this was not a real story. The characters were well developed, and the storyline was well thought out.
Unable to speak or to write, Dr. Luke Brady finds it difficult to communicate. Against his wishes, his alienated wife, Helen, opts to put him in a small town nursing home. At first, Luke is angry and wants to be alone, so he avoids his roommate, Jimmy. The director of nursing, Martha Benson, has a personal vendetta against the doctor and threatens that he will never leave the nursing home. When his daughter, Julie, finds out about a past history that both her parents kept secret, Luke is at his lowest.
How will Dr. Brady fight all the odds against him in recuperating and once again find purpose in life? Will he ever be able to communicate his wishes again?
I enjoyed reading this book. This book had so many good thought-provoking topics included naturally in the story. Some of the issues were: love, self-forgiveness, hope, nursing home patients, loneliness, health-care givers, family dynamics, depression, suicide, and friendship.
I liked the author’s writing style. The author is a doctor, and this is reflected in the main character of Dr. Luke Brady. It is as if the author is writing a story about himself. I best liked how Luke, though having made mistakes and not being perfect, was a compassionate doctor with great skills to assess people’s health. I felt like Dr. Brady was a good man, but he also had to learn many things about himself and others to become the very best man that he was meant to be.
I cannot think of anything that I did not like about the book. I wanted to keep reading to the end to find out what Dr. Brady would do and if he could find a way to communicate. The ending of the story was satisfactory, and though there could be another book to continue the story, it felt like most things were concluded.
I rate The Other Side of Silence by Richard Dew 4 out of 4 stars. The book was written extremely well with only a few errors. The plot and characters were well developed. It was interesting and character driven, with only a few curse words and no graphic sexual content. This book would be suitable for anyone that would like to read a thought-provoking story about a doctor and his predicament of being a “prisoner” in his body and in the nursing home. Perhaps reading this book will give you a different viewpoint on handicapped people. If reading about medical environments and patients in a nursing home bother you, maybe this book would not be of interest to you.
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The Other Side of Silence
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