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    Healer
    Healer
    Healer
    Audiobook12 hours

    Healer

    Written by Carol Cassella

    Narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Carol Wiley Cassella burst onto the literary scene with her debut novel Oxygen, which became a national best-seller and won reams of critical praise. In this engaging follow-up, a Seattle physician has to reevaluate life and career when her husband's business crashes. Through this tale of love and medical wonder, Cassella uses her 25 years of experience in the medical industry to inform a work of emotional distinction and penetrating insight.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 7, 2010
    ISBN9781449821425
    Healer
    Author

    Carol Cassella

    Carol Cassella, MD, is a practicing anesthesiologist, novelist, and speaker. She majored in English literature at Duke University and attended Baylor College of Medicine. She is the bestselling author of the novels Gemini, Oxygen, and Healer, published by Simon & Schuster. Carol lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and two sets of twins. Visit the author at CarolCassella.com.

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    Reviews for Healer

    4/5

    13 ratings10 reviews

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    • 2/5
      This book was a big disappointment after Oxygen. I just never cared for the characters and it wasn't until page 267 that there was the remotest plot twist. Very dull.
    • 4/5
      The storytelling in this novel is filled with an underlying tension that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go until the last page. I didn’t expect that from a novel about a doctor who is forced to return to work after her husband loses a fortune on a failed cancer drug. Because she never completed her residency, the only work Claire can get is at a struggling health care clinic that primarily treats migrant workers. I was expecting a good story, but I was surprised at how gripping it was. The author creates a subtle but undeniable drama around the marriage, parenthood, health care, and friendships that make up the story. It kept me on edge with anticipation. I also became emotionally involved with the characters and felt very much entrenched in their lives. Healer is a story about marriage and friendship, but it is also a book that shines a spotlight on the plight of illegal immigrants and the ethics of medicine. I appreciated that the author was able to tell such a compelling story while allowing the reader to draw his/her own conclusions about difficult subjects. I recommend this satisfying and engrossing read to anyone who enjoys stories of courage and hope in the midst of adversity. In compliance with FTC guidelines, please note that I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 5/5
      A rich novel of a family torn apart. When her husband goes through all their assets with a business plan gone awry, Claire uses her MD at an indigent clinic in order to make some money. This also meant relocating with her daughter, and husband when he is home, to their old country home. Claire, with some trepiditation, gets into the swing of things and finds she is delighted to be practicing medicine. Her work uncovers some unfortunate information, however, in the end she and her husband realize it is their family and not stuff that is important.
    • 3/5
      Better then I anticipated since I bought this book at the dollar store. The book would have been much better if the plot were more developed and had more depth. I thought the characters were well developed and the idea was good, but it lacked detail. It needed to be longer by at least 100 pages to actually be a good book.
    • 4/5
      I won this book from Goodreads months ago, sorry to take so long in reading and reviewing. I wish I had put it ahead of many of the other books I have read recently as it is clearly better.I read Carol Cassella's earlier book Oxygen and loved it. So I was thrilled to have a chance to read this one and was not disappointed. They are both great.
    • 4/5
      What's left when you've lost it all?This second novel by medical doctor Carol Cassella explores the answer to the question -- what is left when you've lost all your material possessions, your home, your reputation, and your previous world of friends and social interaction? The answer lies, for these characters, in the rustic, rural former vacation home they never renovated, in a small town in Hallum, Washington. What remains is simple: hard work and love.Claire is a stay-at-home mom to teen-aged Jory (the only child she can have, born prematurely) when her husband Addison, a wildly successful biochemist who had made them rich by discovering a test to diagnose ovarian cancer early, gambles their entire financial portfolio on a new anti-cancer drug he's trying to bring to market. Almost ready for FDA approval, lab data from clinical trials is suspicious, and the fledgling research venture folds along with Addison's integrity. Gone is all the money they had received from Addison's former triumph, and they have to sell their house and possessions and relocate to Hallum while Addison goes begging at medical conventions for investors in the project he can't give up.Meanwhile, Claire -- who was almost done with residency when Jory arrived early -- needs a job to feed herself and her daughter. Because she's not board certified, she takes the only job she's offered -- in a free clinic for migrant workers run by an aging physician, Dr. Dan Zalaya. The position pays little, and Claire is nervous and anxious about actually working as a doctor again and has also a little difficulty with translating the patients' complaints from Spanish since she doesn't speak the language. She is forced to be a single parent to Jory and works long hours in the barely funded clinic. This was the best part of the novel for me, watching Claire develop her confidence in the art of practicing medicine, being the "healer" as doctora to these migrant workers. I loved the interactions between her and the patients, and between her and the staff at the clinic. It painted a bleak picture of the life of the illegal immigrants and it felt to me that Claire was getting back some of her self esteem.A constant irritant in the book was the teenage daughter Jory, whom I could not stand. I realize that many teenagers are self absorbed and narcissistic, but the amount of patience that Claire had to use to deal with her defied my tolerance level. I just couldn't stand Jory's character and in my view she never redeemed herself or grew up any in the book. Addison was shallow and also selfish -- forging ahead with his dream when he should have taken a bench lab job to provide for his family. I saw him, who had basically stolen away the family fortune without ever discussing it with his wife, as a complete failure as husband and father. I also couldn't understand where the money to buy the food and pay the other bills was coming from as they were buying jewelry and food and paying utilities on only Claire's meager salary. Despite these discordant notes, the narrative moved along hopefully as the family tiptoes around each other trying to work their way back to being a unit and the loving trio they once had been.Then, for some reason, the last part of the book attempts to set up a mystery using a Nicaraguan refugee with a lost daughter. This part of the novel fell flat and seemed tacked on, but other than that - the story moves to a conclusion that is somewhat satisfying. There is redemption of a sort, and the restoration of trust -- though hard won -- and above all, there is love.
    • 4/5
      Claire Boehning is dealing with a lot these days. After a disastrous complication with her husband Addison's new drug research, Claire and her small family are left financially destitute. This is a severe change, as in the days leading up to the disaster, Claire, Addison and their teenage daughter Jory lived a very expensive lifestyle. Now the family has sold their beautiful and spacious home in Seattle and moved to a small farmhouse in rural Washington. Addison is not deterred by these complications and continues to seek funding for his new drug, flying to cities all over the country to meet with entrepreneurs who might be interested in backing him. This leaves Claire to struggle alone at the farmhouse with Jory during a blisteringly cold winter, a winter in which she cannot afford to purchase propane to heat the house. As Claire struggles to make ends meet, she hatches a plan to seek employment as a doctor in the nearby small town. But having given up her schooling after Jory's birth, Claire has not actually been certified as a doctor, and as such can only find work caring for the sick in an underfunded clinic that mainly treats migrant farm workers. Meanwhile, the relationship between Claire and Addison is deteriorating rapidly due to the anger and resentment Claire feels about Addison's financial mismanagement. In addition, issues begin to crop up with Jory, who is not only lonely in her new surroundings, but acting out as she sees her parents' marriage crumbling. In this timely and realistic tale, Cassella shows us the life of one family struggling under the financial burdens that so many today are facing.Lately I've been avoiding the news and similar outlets where the financial crisis plays itself out day after day for public consumption. It's a hard time for everyone and I don't think I know one person who hasn't felt the crunch in one way or the other. I certainly know that our family has taken some major hits in the last two years, and like many, we haven't fully recovered. You would think that having this mindset, I wouldn't enjoy reading a story about a couple who has to watch it all slip away. In fact, I think Cassella does some very interesting things with this story that keep it not only right on target, but make it very easy to relate to, and sometimes just slides shyly away from making this story too uncomfortable for her readers.First off, I think that there was something about Claire that made her very easy to understand emotionally for me. Though she wants to be kind and supportive of her husband and daughter, she's burning the candle at both ends and finds herself emotionally raw and frustrated much of the time. I could really relate to that, and though it's sad to say that money can cause this kind of devastation in a marriage, it is ultimately believable, especially the way Cassella portrays it. Part of the problem is that Addison hasn't been transparent when it comes to what has happened to his family's money. He's used their nest egg to bail out his fledgling company and didn't tell Claire what he was doing. This understandably upsets and frightens Claire, and although she loves her husband, there's a deep wound between them that continues to fester throughout the story. I can completely understand where she's coming from. To be blindsided and lose everything without a clue must have been maddening for her, and just what is she supposed to do about her teenage daughter? I felt a lot of anger toward Addison in this story. Although he's a likable enough fellow, I felt he betrayed his family to a startling degree, and couldn't imagine having to be in Claire's position. To forgive him would have been murderously hard for me.Another main aspect of this story has to do with Claire's work at the clinic. Though she is qualified for the work, it's been many years since she's seen a patient and the language barrier is not the only problem she has when treating them. Many of them are almost destitute and live seasonally at farms across America, harvesting the fruits and vegetables that we see in the grocery store everyday. They're not only underprivileged but have to constantly worry about the border patrol that comes hunting for them. There's no safe place for them and they often go a startlingly long time without medical care. Claire's clinic is always overpopulated and understaffed, and finding a way to treat these people who seem to have no home base or ties to the community is almost impossible. Cassella does a great job of highlighting the problems that immigrants face in America today. It's not a black and white issue, but one with a lot of gradations and hues, and it's an issue that seems to be on the minds of many Americans right now. Cassella is sensitive to the immigrant population as a whole and paints a picture that most people don't think about when they seek to speak on immigration.I think the part of the book that resonated most deeply with me was the financial struggle Claire and her family was going through, and what it ultimately did to the family relationships. Where Claire was almost irate and scared for the future, plowing ahead determinedly, Addison had his head buried in the sand and refused to see the consequences of his actions. Jory, on the other hand, begins to steal and lie to her parents. These are all very different reactions to the same stimuli but all very believable coping mechanisms. Each is trying to get by in a world that's been changed under them and each can't understand the reaction of the others. This creates confusion among them and the lack of communication between them only heightens this effect. Though I wanted to castigate some of them for the things they were doing, I ultimately realized that they were coping with a trauma, and like a trauma victim, there was no prescribed set of actions and reactions that I could pin them down to. Yes, there was passive-aggressiveness, there was open hostility, and there was secretiveness, but there was also a lot of compassion and understanding when things began to boil down to their basic elements. It was amazing to see the heartache and reconciliation between these three, but for me, the most startling thing to realize was that these people could be any of us. They didn't seem like creations to me but rather like fictional versions of people I might know.I loved this book for its stark honesty with character creation and for the fact that it highlighted so beautifully one facet of today's economic disaster. In its quest to be relevant, it was also touching and believable in a way that not many other books on this subject have been to me. The book has a lot to say about many different issues and utilizes a great plausibility of character and situation in which to frame this often-told and familiar story. I think this book would appeal to many for various reasons and have to say I'm glad I got to spend the time with these very human characters. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Healer, Carol Cassella sophomore novel, is a solid family drama with an original storyline that is very in tune with today. Claire and Addison Boehning were one of Seattle's golden couples who went from struggling to rich almost overnight when Addison, a biochemist, discovered a way to test for ovarian cancer in its very early stages. They have one daughter, Jory, who is fourteen. When the book opens, Addison has invested and lost the family's home and savings in a new project that developed problems in initial testing. The family has been forced to sell their home in Seattle and move into their unrennovated vacation home located in the mountains of eastern Washington. Claire is hunting for a job as a family physician, a profession she has never actually practiced as she was 3 months shy of completing her residency when Jory arrived prematurely. Unable to have any other children, Claire chose to stay at home with her one child rather than return to complete her residency and board certification. Unfortunately, that choice has left her with few options for locating a position from which to launch her medical career. She eventually takes the only position offered her as a doctor in nonprofit clinic for migrant laborers where the hours are long and the pay extremely low. Meanwhile, Addison is trying to drum up new investors so he can continue work on his project that already has cost him almost everything he owns.As a practicing anesthesiologist, Cassella uses her professional knowledge and experience with the medical community to craft a very original plot that explores the way medical research is done in the United States. At the same time Addison finds a wealthy investor who seems eager to provide new funding for Addison's project, Claire has discovered that some patients at her clinic, immigrant migrant workers, have been enrolled in clinical trials for another drug. Through these two situations, Cassella exposes some little known loopholes in clinical drug testing, as well as drawing a grim picture of the life of the migrant workers who pick the nation's crops. The author provides some aesthetic release to these clinical tensions with her lyrical portrayals of the rugged landscape.While the medical plot proved sufficient to carry the novel, I sometimes found myself tiring of Claire's constant inner dialogue about her relationships with Addison and Jory and her constant flashbacks to Jory's infancy and childhood. The economic aspects of the family's situation produced the biggest weakness in the story as the parents seemed to have or not have money to pay for things based on whether or not it allowed the characters to do what the author wanted and not what their economic situation would dictate. I found these moments jarringly unrealistic and they left me unable to take Claire's character seriously. However, despite these flaws, Healer is an interesting novel which I recommend for fiction readers who enjoy medical and/or family drama.
    • 3/5
      I read the novel Oxygen. To be honest I can not remember if I liked it or not..Healer was good. It was an easy read. I never include anything from the story in any review I write, because you can get that off the jacket. I read a lot and if the book is really good I will let you know. The characters are strong and you form a bond with them...I kind of knew what was going to happen going into the first chapter...OK read.
    • 4/5
      This was an okay read. I totally fell in love with Carol Cassella's first book, Oxygen.