I'm freeeeeeee!

Gastro c'est fini mes cheres. I have 6 whole days of lovely freedom with my parents to look forwards to, I'm so excited!

My last day of gastro already, it's gone pretty quickly. Having been prepared for the horrendous hours I've been quite resigned to them andmost days we have at least been quite busy so I've found myself surprised that it's 7pm and time to go home. The worst is when it's not busy and you have to wait around for the contre-visite which is just a waste of time because they don't make any effort to include you in it. It's definitely a good placement for practising abdominal exams and you will know acute and chronic pancreatitis like the back of your hand by the end of the placement. There were also some quite interesting complicated cases including an adult with Henoch-Schonlein purpura, some crazy non-sensical Crohns patients. The chef de service was always very nice and impressed by the fact that we're English students studying here and the interne was also very friendly. so all in all, though hard work gastro hasn't been a bad placement really.

Now, onto more important matters:
Literature reviews with Alex, part 4: Les doutes d'une amoureuse – the doubts of a lover lady

Oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes reader, I just don't think this company quality assures its publications.

Les doutes d'une amoureuse was certainly a mixed bag, set in Massachusetts ( I was going to say glamorous Massachussetts but I just can't bring myself type the words) our heroine, Isobel, is a social worker and our hero is Neil (again, Neil – not a name for a romantic hero) some kind of police/investigator type thing.

Starting on a positive note I'd have to say that, actually this book was probably more deserving of the title “intrigue at the hospital” then that book. Neil Kane is investigating anonymous allegations of insurance fraud at the hospital and Isobel becomes a suspect, although by that point Neil doesn't believe it because Isobel's just so lovely it couldn't possibly be her.

Now as a very wise woman by the name of Rosie Moylan once said: mild emotional trauma + fabulous accessories = rom-com magic, and I feel the same applies to trashy romance novels.
The back story to Isobel and Neil's tentative, and frankly massively dull romance is that Isobel is living with her grumpy aged father and Neil is messed up from the death of his younger brother. Isobel doesn't have emotional trauma, she just has principles (eugh!) and there's certainly no shiny accessories in sight. What were they thinking? Ageing cantankerous parents do not make for a steamy romance novel (take note mum and dad). Now for Neil it turns out that his little brother died when he was off fishing alone because young Neil had gone to hang out with some friends and some girls – while his brother was drowning Neil (if I read it right) was busy “becoming a man”. Waste of a quality storyline there. I swear if it was a female character that had happened to she'd literally never have had sex again, whereas Neil has even managed to get married. What that says about this genre of fiction you'll just have to decide for yourself.

But Oh Mon Dieu they were both just so dull, I swear it was like reading Little Women, you know where everyone's just so perfect and lovely and kind to animals that you're just itching for one of them to be discovered snorting crack or buggering the stable boy or whipping a kitten in the next chapter. But no instead, they just uncover the culprit behind the false letters (and even he's just doing it to help his demented mother – I mean really, can't anyone be selfish in this book? It's making me yearn for the petty self-centred whining of the last couple) and get married. Yawn. Fail.

So Marie is back in lovely Manchester and I'm off to Angers for a few days with my parents but I promise to try and find another trashy novel to read and review for you (the things i put myself through!)

xxxxx Alex