All in all, I think I did like the book despite the flaws I’ve mentioned. This was my first Clair Allan title and it won’t be the last. Though disturbing, it raises an important issue. While it is scary to see that such men exist, it is also reassuring to know that they aren’t in the majority. Misogyny (and misandry) are never the right solution; high time the whole of humanity realises this. That being said, I was extremely interested in the premise of this book: shadowing different ER nurses and providing a peek inside their lives. It started off strong, I was hooked in by each of the different unique women and their perspectives. However, I ended up not finishing this - it just couldn't hold my interest. I liked the parts that involved the nurses and their day-to-day, but the informative, essay-like commentary in between just didn't interest me. It was too many facts and research, and a lot of it started sounding all the same. It felt weird inserted in between the real life stories. Although this non-fiction book focuses on four Emergency Room nurses and their personal experiences at various hospitals in an unnamed, large US city, it also includes reflections and anecdotes contributed by many other nurses from all over the world. The meticulous research by the author is evident as statistics and cited material provide a valid snapshot of many issues important to nurses, other healthcare workers, and patients. The voices of the many different types of licensed nurses are heard loud and clear -- LPN, RN, NP, CS, CRNA, DNP with all types of special certifications to add more credentials indicating specialty of practice. Two main points are clear -- nurses mostly love what they do, and they deserve respect and support. Long gone are the days when a nurse dressed in white and wore a cap, stood when a doctor came for rounds, and routinely did as bid without question. Nurses are sentient, compassionate and well-educated practitioners in their own right, doing what they do best -- providing physical care, giving spiritual and emotional support, as well as meticulously assessing, planning, documenting, and evaluating the patient's response and condition at all times. They don't want to be medical doctors, and feel that being a nurse is not a second tier position but one that should be valued on the same level as part of the health care team. When blatant bias against nurses is revealed herein, it's obvious that, although nursing has come a long way since the early days, there is still a long way to go to change perception and treatment of these professionals. You have access to thousands of journals in nursing and midwifery. It’s easy to access articles through the NHS Knowledge and Library Hub and databases for advanced searching. You can also install LibKey Nomad on your device for easy access to journal literature when you search the web and platforms like Google Scholar. My favorite of the main nurses they talked about? Hmm, loved them and felt for them all but I would have to say a tie between Molly and Juliette. I connected the most with them... warm, funny, and compassionate ladies who care fiercely about their patients. (The latter parts describe the other ladies as well to different degrees).

I found myself nodding in agreement, rolling my eyes at other times (mostly because I *know*, been there), and other times, completely appauled at some of the behavior accounted. Robbins took on a serious issue--that of exposing some of the ugly underbelly of medicine/hospitals--so we can be better consumers of health, better able to sympathize with the men and women who spend their lives caretaking and advocating for the patient. Bottom line is profits as usual, so staffing is kept at the absolute minimum. We are talking about life and death situations, where corporations crunch numbers weighing the possibility of a wrongful death suite against huge profits from understaffing. Here's an awful fact, Bureau of Labor Statistics report nursing is the third most dangerous profession, behind police and correctional officers! Nurses are bullied by doctors, if they report, they may lose their job, if they don't patients may die. Nurses are bullied by other nurses who rip apart inexperienced workers. There is even a term for this, "nurses eat their young." It takes amazing skill to turn such an agonising subject matter into an unputdownable plot, the way Claire Allan has done with 'The Nurse.' Her story-telling technique is unfaltering, be it in the tangible portrayal of Nell's sheer terror, Stephen's helplessness, Marian's alternating feelings of grief, dread and numbness, or in the characterization of the antagonist whose twisted POV invokes revulsion and outrage in the reader. Today's nurses wear scrubs that might be stained with blood, urine, or various other un-arousing substances. A male nurse in Virginia said, "We're sweaty and smelly and covered in germs" Sounds sexy doesn't it?

Thank you, NetGalley and Avon Books UK, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own. The nurses don't even respect each other, the young and newly qualified ones suffering from verbal bullying, put-downs and deliberate` overloading with work by the older more experienced nurses. Then there's the deliberate exclusion of the not-cool by the cliques...

The Line - Each chapter of Alexandra Robbin’s The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital open with three quotes. Here are just a few that I found interesting: Reading some of what goes on in hospitals made me slightly more sympatethic but I still think she shouldn't have treated me that way. The four ER nurses Robbins follows are the bones of the book, as you might expect; the reader is meant to get invested in them and their stories. Sometimes that is at the expense of other characters in the book. Charlene, a nursing supervisor, is introduced to the reader as 'insufferable' (27) and 'Scatterbrained and prone to favoritism' (30). If she has depth, it doesn't show. If this book were your introduction to nursing and doctor/patient relations, you might come away with the impression that doctors are all egotistical bullies (except for the very few who are reasonable human beings) and nurses are all belaboured, hard-working, intelligent saints who don't receive their due (except for the very few who are lazy bullies). I received an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Shout out to Avon Books UK and Claire Allan.

The nurse is a young woman who has been taken by a different man who is upping the stakes. He has already killed one woman and is holding ‘the nurse’ captive while planning a live streamed grand finale. A harrowing tale of misogyny and toxic masculinity, this suspense thriller describes every woman's worst nightmare. However, there's a disconnect between the cover and the description and the actual content of the book that kept bothering me. The 'Him' character's involvement towards the end also seemed hard to believe, and I think the writer could have given us more of a look into the... camaraderie, if I can call it that, between the men on the forum.

This book is able to take a matter like Chads and Staceys and keep the suspense and not make it some comedic cringe festival. I was at the edge of my seat. Especially about halfway through when we start to find out a lot more of what’s going on. I would recommend this for the suspense and also just as a warning to what kind of weirdos are out there. Stay safe, ladies! As a former RN myself, I fell in love with the concept as well as the four nurses portrayed. But let's be clear: while the book is called THE NURSES, it's more about ER nurses. That's okay because the author does such a fabulous job of pulling quotes from other disciplines/specialities giving the book a well-balanced voice from nurses all over the U.S (some studies even cite international journals and health practice), as well as unique perspectives from clinical instructors to nurses at the top of their clinical game. These stories are likely not representative of all nurses, however. All four protagonists work in hospital emergency rooms in the same unnamed city; all four are American-born white women under 45 (per the author, the average age of American nurses is 47); three are close friends with each other, and the fourth is a friendly acquaintance. I suspect the author has taken significant creative license, given the amount of dialogue and detail, and the fact that although she follows these women for a predetermined one-year period, all four stories wrap up with Hollywood endings. Another book that would normally be 'out of my book zone' but came across it by chance and thought I would give it a try. Very glad I did:) Now all that sounds kinda mean coming from some one who's job is to take care of people all day or night doesn't it? It's not. Nurses will fight for you. They will stand up to that doctor who they question, they will stay after shift just to help you if needed. Nursing is a calling. Take the time to tell your nurse thank you. They don't get enough praise and she will go that extra mile for you. She or he will probably go that mile anyways but some niceness in a crazy world is ALWAYS appreciated.

Some of the attitudes of some of the doctors had my jaw dropping at their behavior. Not all of the doctors were like that, I'm not saying they all are.. the ones who weren't had me smiling at their kindess and laughing in some cases. Nurses are on the front-lines, the ones with us the most during our stay... they deserve all the respect we can give them. . I had no idea some of this happened in the hospitals, all that the nurses put up with.. I have even more respect for them now.