Cutting for Stone: A novel

One of my all-time favorite novels.

Beautifully written. The story and writing drew me in immediately. The writing was poetic and evocative, but the story was compelling as well. The ending wasn't quite as satisfying as I had hoped ~ one pivotal character in particular seemed one dimensional. But overall it was a good book ~ I would highly recommend it.

I really liked this book. I would have given it five stars, but there were some "coincidences" that were just too convenient and made it too tidy in spots. There are some very lovable characters and the setting is Ethiopia during the Haile Selassie years, which I found to be very interesting. A lot of medical procedures described very graphically, which I also found very interesting. I think I could probably turn a breech baby if I needed to! I didn't want to put it down.

Beautiful but tragic story of twins Marion and Shiva, orphaned at birth, growing up in a turbulent Ethiopia during the reign of Haile Selaisse.

Lots of richly formed characters, and his descriptions of the medical procedures read almost like prose.