Author: Regina O'Melveny
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible for iPhone
Books I've read this year: 64
I am a sucker for books about strong women, medical subjects, and minutiae, so it's no surprise that I really enjoyed The Book of Madness and Cures, the story of Gabriella, a thirty-year-old physician living in Venice in 1590 who embarks on a quest to find her father, who left home ten years earlier to do research on their shared book about mental diseases. Gabriella, whose defining characteristic is singlemindedness, takes her two closest servants on a trip throughout Europe and into Africa, with hopes that they will find the Elder Doctor Mondini before madness overtakes him.
When I was a kid, I babysit for two boys who had the old school Carmen Sandiego game at their house. I'd play it and eat ice cream while my little brother played with the boys. This book reminded me a lot of Carmen Sandiego-- Gabriella goes from city to city, through high mountain passes, past lands where their only companions are wild animals, and meets people who are as eager to throw her off course as others are to help her. I liked Gabriella's nuanced character-- she's strong, but she's also infuriating and insensitive and emotionally clueless at times. Her haughty voice could be annoying (I listened to an audiorecording) but I also appreciated that O'Melveny was willing to create a prickly character. I also cheered when Gabriella prevented the "girl searching for her father" phenomenon from carrying over into another generation. I won't say more than that, except to say that this book did break my cardinal rule of fiction, but in this case, I was enjoying the story so much that I didn't really care.
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