Healed

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Healed About?

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but after deciding to read a book, I basically forget whatever it was that I read it was about. That’s certainly the case here, in the month and a half between being sent it and opening it up, I’d forgotten everything—I dimly remembered it was about a nurse. That was it.

I was right, Cuppy Valentine is a nurse—she has been working for some time now for a urologist, who isn’t the best guy in the world, but he pays pretty well. Cuppy supplements this wage by picking up shifts here and there when she can and where there’s a need. Because this is 21st Century America, there’s always a need—she works in a Pediatric ICU, covers shifts for patients in hospice, and so on. She doesn’t have much of a social life—and will frequently work instead of dating. There’s one pretty cute doctor in the Pediatric ICU, however…

But the most important thing to know about Cuppy is that she works hard to care for her patients—no matter age, class, gender, etc.—or her fellow nurses. This will frequently involve flaunting/bending/fracturing rules/protocols/laws on their behalf. Think Nurse Jackie without the affairs or drug addiction.

That’s what we see for the first 40% or so of the book—Cuppy bouncing between the urology office and various assignments. We meet some patients, we see their distress, we occasionally laugh at situations the jerks find themselves in, we feel bad for the sympathetic ones, and our hearts break over the children kept alive by machines in the ICU.

Then (and this is what I’d forgotten, but it’s in the description so I can say it), Cuppy is given a gift (or a curse). She can heal people by her touch alone. She can hardly believe it—but she can. She begins going around and helping favorite patients, people she’s watched suffer for months and years—and then she broadens her horizons.

Cuppy’s aunt/surrogate-mother, a friend, the aforementioned cute doctor, a local Roman Catholic parish priest, a medical researcher, and more try to direct how she uses this ability. A would-be radio personality/medical specimen driver and a washed-up medical reporter have their own ideas for Cuppy. Legions want her help. All Cuppy wants to do is to help some people—but what’s the best way?

The Tone of the Book

It’s tricky to do medical-based humor—as anyone who’s watched a movie or TV show about it can tell you (the writers, cast, and directors can probably tell you more about it)—particularly if you want to get the medicine right. Alani frequently hits it right—basing things in a urology office probably helps. We all tend to laugh a little easier at things involving that set of plumbing—if only as a defense mechanism.

But she gets the serious stuff right, too. Those dealing with cancer, loneliness, and other heart-breaking conditions—especially the elderly and the very, very young—aren’t treated as avenues for comedy, we get to see them in their honestly tragic settings.

So, what did I think about Healed?

I wasn’t crazy about the way the book started—but I’d gotten into the groove of the episodic nature. It was enjoyable enough, but a series of set pieces like we were given is almost never going to be something I celebrate.

But when she gained her abilities, the book really took off. I’m not 100% sure I liked how Cuppy was treated by the author for the last half of the book—she really lost a lot of her maverick nature and agency. Alani largely justified it through circumstance—and eventually Cuppy started being herself again, but I think it went on too long without it.

I didn’t buy—or care one whit about—the love story. I think there’s a better way for Alani to get the doctor and his point of view into Cuppy’s story. But it wouldn’t surprise me to find I’m in the minority there.

Her fellow nurse and the receptionist in the Urology office (along with a couple of patients) made this book for me, though. They ground Cuppy, tell us more about her than the narration does, and get you to like her.

Occasionally—and Cuppy’s not around when this happens—Alani’s humor gets mean and insulting, usually in a condescending manner. That turned me off big time. Frequently, that has something to do with someone in the media (but not always). Perhaps she was trying to say something bigger about reporters, the press, TV/Radio personalities—but it fell flat. Maybe Alani had to cut some bigger pieces of that somewhere along the way that would’ve made these sections work, and inadvertently left these brief bits in where they stood out a little more. I don’t know—but it would’ve helped to cut all of those things.

The first chapter in the pediatric ICU was heartwrenching. Cuppy’s take on what we do to keep a little one alive—at the costs for the children and families (on all levels)—is likely to make you uncomfortable. And that’s the point. Even if you ultimately disagree with her (as I do), it’s something we should all think more about.

I do recommend this to those who read medical comedies/dramas and can appreciate a little supernatural element to them. Healed is an occasionally bumpy ride, but it’s an enjoyable one.