Title: The Surgeon
Author: Leslie Wolfe
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: March 8th 2023
Publisher: Bookouture
Finished reading: February 24th 2023
Pages: 316

“We always assume we have time. There’s never any time. Every day we’re alive is borrowed against the unforeseen.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Bookouture in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

WARNING: the unpopular opinion train has added yet another unscheduled stop this month!!

Right… I surely didn’t expect to be in this position again this month to be honest. I’ve been meaning to try Leslie Wolfe‘s work for ages, and when I saw this stand-alone I thought it was the perfect opportunity to finally do so. I loved the sound of the blurb of The Surgeon, with the main character being a surgeon who just lost her first pacient… Unfortunately, I ended up struggling considerably with this story instead, and I came close to DNFing more than once. Below I will try to explain what didn’t work for me.

First of all, I have to say that I found the blurb to be a bit misleading. Sure, a man did die during surgery, and sure, the main character did hate him. But she didn’t know who he was until AFTER he was already dead, so I don’t see how anyone would see her as a murderer… This also wasn’t the only focus of this story. Oh no, there is a whole another POV that basically involves an absolutely despicable character and a lot of active cheating going on as well as a strong love triangle vibe. If I had known about this second POV and active cheating angle, I would not have touched this story with ten-foot pole… A little warning would have been nice; especially since there is so much focus on the cheating during the whole story. I know most people might not be bothered by it, but it is a major pet peeve of mine and something that instantly makes me enjoy any story a lot less.

Also, why do all the characters have to be so unlikeable?! Paula is particularly despicable and I absolutely hated every single minute I had to spend with her. She is a self-centered, vindictive, scheming and simply horrible piece of trash, and a corrupt one at that for trying to use the justice system for her own devious plans. The husband and lover I have not one good word for; and especially since the story kind of makes him come over as a good guy? Or at least in a rather bland kind of way, without too much development. And the surgeon Anne… Boy, did she get on my nerves! Not only did I feel that she never really ‘killed’ her patient in the first place, but her constant worry and guilt became so frustrating I wanted to throw my kindle against the wall. The constant repetition of her worries and fear that the police was coming for her was just overkill… I also found her particularly clueless in general about what was going on in her life, and I wondered how she could be so blind about her husband.

Between the active cheating and horrible characters, I struggled enormously to actually make it to the final page. In fact, I started skimreading long before the halfway mark, because I honestly couldn’t care less about what happened to any of them… And I realize now that the best option would probably have been to just DNF it instead of continuing to torture myself. I do know that I’m in the minority when it comes to The Surgeon, because it has been receiving glowing reviews so far… But this doesn’t change the way I feel about my experience with this story, and I’m putting my two cents in just in case there is someone out there with a similar experience to my own.

You can also find me at Goodreads. StoryGraph. Twitter. Instagram. Bloglovin’.