Mount Misery

Rating:
Summary: A formulaic attempt at capturing the magic of the original
Review: I eagerly anticipated this sequel. Unfortunately it is merely a formulaic attempt to duplicate the original in a different setting. Roy Bash is to goes through the same ups and downs, corrupting cynical attitudes, and, finally, redemtion. The "mentor" figure is a duplicate of the HOG's "fatman". It is as if Roy didn't learn anything at the HOG, thus we are sentenced to watch him live through the exact same story again. When will the cycle end? I stopped reading this book when it became clear that it was going to harm my relationship with the original. Good-twin vs bad-twin syndrome?

Rating:
Summary: five stars again
Review: I have read The House OF God 2 years ago and in comparison both THOG and Mount Misery deserve 5 stars. Shem does not simply transfer the plot from THOG to another setting but provides a independent and true (?) tale of medial specialization.

Rating:
Summary: Bit of a change from House of God
Review: I read this after enthusiastically reading House of God for the second time and I must say was a little disappointed. Roy is not the same guy he was in HOG, not nearly as funny and much more depressing. Fewer crazy things happen and in general this book is much less interesting. IT is obvious the author wrote it years later as he himself has changed. Had Inot read HOG first though, I'd probably have thought this book was great!

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, Amusing, philosophical and thought provoking
Review: In sharp contrast to this books older and more famous brother "The house of God" this one is much less hilarious and much more thought provoking and disturbing. Dr Baschs catastrophic and nearly fatal first year of residency in a prestigious psychiatric institute is depicted in all its gloomy details. The characters in this book are quite extreme each in its own positive or negative way and shems witty and clever description of them (even for the better ones) is merciless. a word of warning - don't get to attached to any of the characters, Shem has a tendency to eliminate some of them in various stages of the book. I am a medical student, and I first read this book In my first year after reading the "House of God" - it was mildly amusing. However, I reread it this year (my fifth) after doing my rotation in a psychiatric hospital and this book is right on target. It made me think very hard about the patients, the doctors and all that's in between. A must book for everyone who is interested in medicine, psychiatry or just plain human nature.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, Amusing, philosophical and thought provoking
Review: In sharp contrast to this books older and more famous brother "The house of God" this one is much less hilarious and much more thought provoking and disturbing. Dr Baschs catastrophic and nearly fatal first year of residency in a prestigious psychiatric institute is depicted in all its gloomy details. The characters in this book are quite extreme each in its own positive or negative way and shems witty and clever description of them (even for the better ones) is merciless. a word of warning - don't get to attached to any of the characters, Shem has a tendency to eliminate some of them in various stages of the book. I am a medical student, and I first read this book In my first year after reading the "House of God" - it was mildly amusing. However, I reread it this year (my fifth) after doing my rotation in a psychiatric hospital and this book is right on target. It made me think very hard about the patients, the doctors and all that's in between. A must book for everyone who is interested in medicine, psychiatry or just plain human nature.

Rating:
Summary: Who really needs help-the patients or the shrinks
Review: MOUNT MISERY Samuel Shem Ballantine, Mar 1997, $24.00, 436 pp. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition

Rating:
Summary: A roller coaster ride through modern psychiatry
Review: Roy Basch, MD, is back! For any doctor or medical student, who at one time or another read "The House of God" and learned the LAWS by heart (most of them probably even use them on a regular basis!), this is a long awaited sequel. Having decided to leave internal medicine behind and to become a psychiatrist, Basch lives through his first year as a resident at a prestigious mental institution called Mount Misery, only to find out that the name is more than just metaphorical. He discovers, that it is sometimes hard to tell the patients from their therapists, and that normal can be a question of health insurance. It is an exciting, very funny, and sometimes even frightening novel about modern psychiatry. In "House of God" the reader wondered how much of the story was satirical and just how much was true. And if you're a physician, you will know that everything in it is real. Having read "Mount Misery", you will beg your therapist to tell you that it is all just a joke. But then again, maybe you are a shrink yourself and know better... A definite must for patients and doctors.

Rating:
Summary: A roller coaster ride through modern psychiatry
Review: Roy Basch, MD, is back! For any doctor or medical student, who at one time or another read "The House of God" and learned the LAWS by heart (most of them probably even use them on a regular basis!), this is a long awaited sequel. Having decided to leave internal medicine behind and to become a psychiatrist, Basch lives through his first year as a resident at a prestigious mental institution called Mount Misery, only to find out that the name is more than just metaphorical. He discovers, that it is sometimes hard to tell the patients from their therapists, and that normal can be a question of health insurance. It is an exciting, very funny, and sometimes even frightening novel about modern psychiatry. In "House of God" the reader wondered how much of the story was satirical and just how much was true. And if you're a physician, you will know that everything in it is real. Having read "Mount Misery", you will beg your therapist to tell you that it is all just a joke. But then again, maybe you are a shrink yourself and know better... A definite must for patients and doctors.

Rating:
Summary: Some light and insightful moments in a book that's too long.
Review: Samuel Shem's book has some funny and insightful moments. Overall, however, the reader gets the point after 50-100 pages and, although there are a few surprises at the end, it plods along repeating itself for hundreds more. One wonders why it takes the supposedly bright protagonist so long to catch on to what's going on around him. Probably the biggest problem this book has is in the writing itself. If Shem's characters and situations were portrayed with more subtlety and depth (rather than as caricatures) the reader might find them more believable and interesting. Also, there's something fishy about the time frame. While there's much discussion of new medications (SRI's, for example) and managed care, there's also a heavy dose of Freudian proselytizing from some of the key characters. Somehow the talk therapy in this book sounds outdated-- like Shem took two eras in psychotherapy and smushed them together into his novel's timeframe. Overall, this book will probably be of interest to those who hang around in therapeutic settings. For the rest of us lay readers, it's a mildly interesting read for long, hot summer afternoons.

Rating:
Summary: provocative yet accurate
Review: Samuel Shem's sequel to his best selling novel "The House of God" provides the raw reality of today's training of psychiatry residents which for those not in the healthcare business does indeed read like a novel but to those who have undergone psychiatric training it reads more like a documentary. One concern I had was that although the sequel is supposed to be taking place two years after the original novel, in reality the difference in historical timing is close to twenty because the original novel took place during Nixon's second term and the sequel makes references to president clinton and other healthcare issues which simply were not issues two years after the original novel took place. Other than that, fans of the first book will not be disappointed