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To Hell & Back • This is Going to Hurt • Eleanor Olphant is Completely Fine • On the Bookshelf
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It’s funny that I’m writing a post about what I read this winter when I’m currently finding it hard to stay inspired to continue on reading. Though most of my winter was busy, I got a good amount of time to myself under my belt to just watch Christmas movies and lounge with a book in hand. These days I’m only spending time reading on the tube and it makes it hard to make much a dent in any books. With that said, I always find visiting a bookstore to be quite inspiring. Last weekend, I visited the Wellcome Centre for their Health and Architecture exhibit. I was about 30 minutes early meeting with friends so I found myself in the gift shop that has an incredibly curation of books I had read and wanted to read. From philosophy and autobiographies to reflective essays on functional medicine and historical fiction. It was a bit of a surprise for me, but I spotted a few titles I was looking to read the covers of and was re-inspired.
Rewinding back to winter, I read a decent amount of books that covered my specialization topics, but thought I’d share the more interesting titles along with some links from the internet of what I read this winter.


To Hell & Back by Samira Bellil
This was something I picked up when I was home and found whilst cleaning my closet. I was assigned to read this book my senior year of college, but I was already getting a 99% in the class if I didn’t read the book and decided to skip the assignment {don’t try this at home, kids}. My professor follows my blog and is one of my biggest supporters in life actually, so it’s okay if she reads this! Bellil’s story was part of the reading for the immigration unit in the class. It’s a truly grim and heartbreaking read about the immigrant situation in France in the 1990s. The lack of a real system, limited resources and minimal security is just the very general themes. My mouth was wide open the entire time because it just felt like such an unfortunately list of events constantly happening to one person and I literally felt helpless. I would give this book 4/5 stars because it didn’t discuss the convoluted immigration system in France or break down the efforts greatly, but it does make you think of your own safety and what you could do about it if you needed the resources.
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
It may that a lot of what I read this winter are autobiographies of sorts and that wasn’t intentional! I loved this book and gave it a 5-star rating. It was witty, funny and a very quick read. Written like a journal, it follows the working life of a junior doctor of the NHS. With Trump in office making conservative changes and Brexit pressures impacting national institutions, I was curious to see what the NHS was dealing with. To my surprise, and I don’t mind, the book barely touches on the current system and instead looks at first hand account of the livelihood of a junior doctor. The pain and sacrifice to the joy and rewards of the job, this book will make you think if you really need to go in to see the doctor. I have a newfound respect for doctors.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
I jumped on the bandwagon in December and read this fairly quickly. Eleanor is a process and ritual driven woman who has her own way of living and doing things. She works in an office and keeps to herself. It turns slightly as she becomes friends with someone else in the office and her world becomes to change drastically as she pushes herself to change out of her routine and try new things. Each isolated moment in the book is quite profound on how it impacts Eleanor and it ultimately all takes a twist. In hindsight, I think I would give this book a 4/5 stars because it did slow down greatly in the middle, but it will have you bouncing from emotion to emotion.
Well, now that you know what I read this winter, what did you read?


