Cutting for Stone

This is certainly an epic book in terms of the characters and settings. Here we follow Marion who is one of a twin as he grows up in Ethiopia and eventually leaves to go to America. We get back stories of other characters and through this we also get taken to Scotland and India. This book certainly trys to pull you in straight away as it starts with the birth of the twins to their nun mother whom no one had a clue she was even pregnant.

The first part of the book contains alot of back stories for quite a few characters while the twins are being born and I did wonder why the author was doing this for what seemed like minor characters. However during the second part of the book this all made complete sense as suddenly what seemed like small information in the first part of the book suddenly became a big piece of information in the second. I guess this is evidence of how well the author has really thought out this story and made everything connect.

There are alot of surgerical procedures in the book but I personally didn’t find the descriptions too in-depth that I couldn’t understand them and they are only used in the book when the plot requires them. Marion describes to us how a hospital like ‘Missing’ (where he was born and grew up) can operate in a country like Ethiopia. Then in America he describes how a hospital relying on Medicare in a poor area in New York works in contrast to a rich hospital in Boston. Knowing very little about healthcare in America this was fascinating to me.

I loved the characters and how they were presented, no one in this book is perfect they all have their flaws but you don’t blame the characters for them. A few of the characters do bad things which as a reader you could hate them for but you don’t. This isn’t a book filled with 'good guys' and 'bad guys' just realistic human people.

Verdict 4/5

Posted by Jess