At Least You Have Your Health
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- €10.99
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- €10.99
Publisher Description
One of Shondaland's Best Books of April 2022!
A Lilly's Library Book Club Pick!
Behind the chic veneer of a wellness clinic lies a dangerous secret, in this compelling women's fiction novel from the author of The White Coat Diaries.
Dr. Maya Rao is a gynecologist trying to balance a busy life. With three young children, a career, and a happy marriage, she should be grateful—on paper, she has it all. But after a disastrous encounter with an entitled patient, Maya is forced to walk away from the city hospital where she’s spent her entire career.
An opportunity arises when Maya crosses paths with Amelia DeGilles at a school meeting. Amelia is the owner and entrepreneur behind Eunoia Women’s Health, a concierge wellness clinic that specializes in house calls for its clientele of wealthy women for whom no vitamin infusion or healing crystal is too expensive. All Eunoia needs is a gynecologist to join its ranks.
Amid visits to her clients’ homes, Maya comes to idolize the beautiful, successful Amelia. But Amelia’s life isn’t as perfect as it seems. When Amelia’s teenaged daughter is struck with a mysterious ailment, Maya must race to uncover the reason before it’s too late. In the process, she risks losing what’s most important to her and bringing to light a secret of her own that she’s been desperately trying to keep hidden.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sinha follows up The White Coat Diaries with a perceptive account of a present-day Philadelphia gynecologist who empathizes with her patients about the difficulties of being a woman. Maya Rao dreams of providing community education on sexual health and anatomy but struggles with the demands of parenthood and disappointment from her working-class Indian immigrant parents about her marriage and career choices. After Maya has an interaction with a patient that she interprets as racist and sexist, she impulsively quits, and later joins Eunoia, a private wellness clinic run by the wealthy Amelia DeGilles, the mother of one of her child's classmates. Gradually, the healthcare practices of her new clients, such as their preference for natural birth, lead Maya to question her career move and confront her reluctance about returning to obstetrics. Sinha convincingly explores Maya's struggle between family, work, and self-fulfillment, and offers cogent social commentary on privilege, parenting, and the patriarchy ("women doctors: all the compassion and emotional burnout, none of the power or influence"). A side plot involving Amelia's daughter and an unexplained illness provides emotional weight, though its denouement borders on the absurd. Nevertheless, Sinha gives readers plenty to chew on.
