Adverse Effects
By Joel Shulkin
4/5
()
About this ebook
Determined to help her amnesiac patients recover their lives, Boston psychiatrist Cristina Silva is achieving near-miraculous results by prescribing Recognate, a revolutionary new memory-recovery drug now in trials. She understands her patients’ suffering better than most, because she’s lost her memories, too. Desperate to become herself again, she pops the same experimental drug she prescribes to her patients. And, like them, she remembers a little more each day.
Until one of her patients, a successful accountant, jumps from an eight-story window to his death. And as Cristina’s memories return, with them come violent visions and an incessant voice in her head. Maybe the drug isn’t safe after all. But discontinuing it would mean forgetting everything she’s recalled and losing herself.
Then an enigmatic, possibly dangerous man appears at Cristina’s bus stop. He seems to know more about her life than she does and says she holds a secret that puts her life in danger. Perilously balanced between an unknown past and a terrifying future, if she wants to survive, Cristina must stay on the medication and unlock those memories before it’s too late—even if the adverse effects of the drug could destroy her.
Joel Shulkin
Joel Shulkin, MD, is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and United States Air Force veteran with a master’s in public health. Having been lucky enough to be mentored by the legendary Michael Palmer, his short stories have appeared in various print and online journals, and he has won several national and local writing awards for fiction and poetry. He lives in Florida with his wife and twin daughters.
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Reviews for Adverse Effects
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is about a psychiatrist participating in a study on an experimental drug to help amnesia patients regain their memories. Herself a survivor of a traumatic injury in a wreck that killed her parents, she begins taking the drug herself. When two of her patients kill themseles she begins to get worried. When a mysterious hobo begins following her she gets scared. Then she starts having violent nightmares. Are these all connected? Is the drug the cause? She must find out if she wants to survive. I love medical mysteries and I hate Big Pharma so this book sounded perfect for me. I did enjoy it but it had some problems. First, the technical descriptions about how the drug works will bog some readers down. I am a pharmacist so I understood them but the average reader may not. Next, the characters. They were good, but there were a lot of them and they weren't always what they seemed. This led to some confusion but maybe that is the whole point as the drug made the users confused. At times I felt like I was on a bad LSD trip. Lastly, the plots twists, and there were many, were hard to follow if you put the book down and came back to it later. It is best read in one or two sittings. In the end, I got it. I think. On the whole I enjoyed the book. It is a good look at what greed and an unscrupulous drug company can do. It is obvious the author knows his subject. Though at times I was confused, looking back I realized that made the book more real. It misses the mark of being a truly great medical thriller (like Coma, the book that started my love of the genre) but it was still an enjoyable and worthwhile read. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy.