Josh Goldin está disfrutando de un descanso en la sala de café de su oficina cuando recibe un mensaje de la llamada de su mujer, un mensaje sobre su hijo que menciona "cuidados intensivos" y "pérdida de conocimiento".
Esa mañana, Dori había llevado de urgencias al pequeño Zack, de ocho meses. El bebé parecía sufrir algo grave, pero a la doctora Darlene Stokes algo en la actitud de la madre le parece sospechoso. Había oído hablar del síndrome de Munchausen, que padecen madres que hieren intencionadamente a sus bebés, pero nunca se había encontrado con ningún caso.

I only gave it 2 stars because I was interested to see what happens so I did finish it but the characters and their inner lives made me extremely sad for society. And the ending was unsatisfying, although perhaps predictable. Some of the prose seemed force to me, like the author was showing off how many words he knew. ( )

A very interesting topic for sure. I enjoyed most of the book, however there were several parts that were so wordy and unnecessary that I had to skim through it. I was also a bit confused by Dori's last statement. I expected a bit more with the ending. Dori is certainly a troubled soul and she makes herself quite unlikeable. Darlene is also a troubled soul, but I found myself rooting for her all along. The book definitely holds the attention as the story is quite gripping. I just couldn't get past the over-wordiness. UUUGGGHHH!!! ( )

When I'm borrowing audiobooks from the library, I prefer unabridged books because abridgements usually let me down. Here's a time when an abridgement would have been beneficial.

Other Goodreads reviews suggested that this book would get better after the initial introductions. It didn't.

The character developments were so long and indepth! They got very boring. And though eventually the detailed background of Darlene Stokes did become relevant, there was just too much character development overall. (Which makes me wonder why only the social worker never got a personality background.) Too much character thinking, too many diatribes and tangents by the author (did he think he'd never get a chance to publish again and thus include all of his essays on all sorts of topics in this one volume?!), too many characters to follow, it got boring and stayed that way. I cared about none of the protagonists (not the mother, the father, the doctor, or her father) and so I didn't care at all what happened.

So glad to be done this one. ( )

Good Lord... this book was s...l...o...w... and boring. I wanted to strangle both Josh and Dori and I didn't see the point in most of the Dr. Stokes background. Ugh. ( )