Reader's Journal-Fiction

#10                                                     Reader’s Journal                                            11/1/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

            I have just abandoned the book Diagnosis Death by Richard Mabry. The genre of this book is mystery. Mystery is a subgenre, in the category of fiction; it is a book that includes secrets or crimes to be solved. Sadly, I have chose to abandon this book. Even though I really liked it and was interested in reading it at the beginning. When I started the book, I was so hooked and thought I was going to finish it surely, until the plot structure and every other literary element was coming out extremely slow!

Even though I abandoned this book, I honestly think I gave it a fair chance in reading it. The book just wasn’t a fast and easy read. It occurred for it to be a little dreadful for me and even a little harder to understand because it includes all these weird doctor procedures that I have never heard before!

A passage that sparked my interest while reading this book was located in the kindle. “A blood vessel popped in your husband’s brain burst. Usually it’s because of a weak place, sort of like a balloon. This is more likely to happen when there’s high blood pressure and hardening in the arteries, and your husband has both these conditions.” The woman looked down at the handkerchief she was twisting. “Can they save him?” “Dr. Clark is an excellent neurosurgeon. He’ll do his very best.” “Oh I hope so. I couldn’t bear to lose Chester. We’ve been married for forty-eight years. If he died… I’d die too.”

I chose this quote because I can relate to it since this similar incident happened to my close family member. I can understand and feel the position that the patient’s wife is in. Also, the quote is significant to the book because Elena went through and thought about the same negativity as her patient’s wife. Also, you can see that Elena has improved and she is now seeing patients again. Surprisingly, she was able to pull her act together!

            There were many strategies I used before, during, and after reading this book. Before reading, I discussed the information I read from the previous day of reading. Also, I asked a friend (who was also reading this book) if the book continued to be worth reading. While reading, I kept track of new information on a sticky note so that it would be easier to write my readers journal when I was done reading. Also, I tried to understand the vocabulary words that I did not recognize to comprehend the statements the author was trying to make. After reading, I looked through and double-checked the book to make my final chose of deciding if whether or not I should abandon or continue reading the book and sadly, I chose to abandon it. Also, I took the differences in literary elements from the beginning to where I stopped reading and wrote my readers journal; all literary elements seemed to stay the same.

The tone of this book was mysterious and curious and the mood was to feel bored and mysterious at times. There was no theme or moral in this book and I’m not sure of the motif, since I haven’t read the past series of this book. The author’s purpose was to entertain the reader with a fictional story and the authors perspective was objective, and unbiased because the author has no opinions. The point of view was written in third person limited. This means that the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of only one character. The pattern of organization was climatic order because the author took the reader from the least important idea to the most important one.

            There were many new characters I have encountered in this book since the last time I’ve read! A main character, Dr. Elena Gardner is round and a protagonist. This is because she is described in detail with who she is, however; she does not have any characterization because she has the same attitude throughout the entire book! There were no antagonist characters included in this book. Some foil characters that were introduced were Dr. David Merritt, Mark (Elena’s husband who has passed away), the person who Elena gets a call from every night, Chester Pulliam, Dr. Amy Gross, Erma Pulliam, Dr. Cathy Sewell Dr. Bruce Matney, and Dr. Helen Bennett.

            The book didn’t have any specific setting, although most events occur in St. Paul Hospital. Weather conditions or time stated in the book but the social conditions were that Elena was hiding something mysterious and was a wife, whose husband has passed away.

            Since I abandoned the book, I only read up to its climax in its plot structure and it wasn’t the best I’ve read. The exposition is only a couple short chapters in the book. It explains how miserable Dr. Elena was because her husband has just passed away. Also, it includes who everyone is and the author really focused on Elena. The rising action was when a mysterious woman called Elena, crying on the phone everyday at midnight. Also, it is when Elena gets a job offer to work as a doctor again. The climax, which was the last part I’ve read, was when Elena received an anonymous letter, saying that someone knew what she did. This event caught my attention because it lead to a mystery to why someone sent that letter and what she possibly could have done to get it! Sadly, I have abandoned the book before reading the falling action and the resolution. The conflict is Man. Vs. Man. This is because Elena is really against herself and she has to really get over her loss and move on with her life instead of being depressed and ruining the rest of it even though she is trying to work again.

            While reading, I identified many lines of figurative language! One out of the many I found was: “Matney’s voice was like polished steel”. In this sentence, the figurative language was a simile because it is comparing two complete different things, by using the word like. Also, “A light at the tip of the instrument showed the opening between the vocal cords, barely visible in a sea of pooled saliva” is a metaphor. “Elena looked at the clock on the wall. Sometimes in an emergency, time slowed down. At other times it seemed to be rocket-powered.” I consider this sentence as a hyperbole because Elena is exaggerating the clocks speed. Also, a cliché I found was in the following sentence: “Are you ready for the next chapter of the Elena Gardner’s tragedy?” Finally, another hyperbole, being “Her throat was in a knot at the reminder of the bombshell Helen dropped on her this morning.”

All in all, this book was good at the very beginning and then it wasn’t such a mystery any longer. I recommend this book to people who like reading about the Christian or Catholic religion because this book surprisingly mentions a lot of acts with god mentioned in them. Also, people who read this book should have a wide variety of vocabulary comprehension because some events may be hard to understand. I rate the book a 6-10 because it kept me hooked throughout the beginning and by the middle, I abandoned the book. Don’t be afraid to give this book a chance! We all have different opinions on books and just because I abandoned this book doesn’t mean you will too!

Love,

Joelle Ben-Nissan