Title: Against Medical AdviceAuthor: Ruth Anna Evans
First Published: June 12, 2024
Publisher: Self-Published
Pages: 95
Genre: Horror, Short Stories
Format: eARC
Source: Review Request
Rating:
Synopsis:
Frank's six-year-old daughter Maddie is sick. Very sick. Her mother is out of town and he's on his own to handle the emergency. But the doctors can't find anything wrong and money is quickly running out. Frank is desperate, and he begins to consider the unthinkable.
Shelly is a social worker with a pill problem. When a case spins out of control, she finds herself out of pills and at the end of her rope. Then she gets a call to check into a tip from an EMT: A father who may be making his own daughter ill. Will Shelly intervene in time, or will she fail to save a child...again?
From the author of OH FUCK OH FUCK IT HURTS comes this gripping, fast-paced novella of medical horror that will make you question: How far would you go when the only thing you can do is Against Medical Advice?
Get the Book: AmazonReview
Against Medical Advice blew me away and it was genuinely one of the most gut wrenching and horrifying books I’ve ever read. Frank is a loving father left on his own to care for his sick daughter. He runs into dead end after dead end trying to figure out how he can help his child. My heart bled for Frank and the book perfectly captured the absolute terror of being a parent with a frightened child in pain. The healthcare system in America can be both extremely difficult and unbelievably expensive, the panic that Frank feels as he finds himself in dire straits without support or resources was terrifying.
On the other side of the story the book follows Shelly, a social worker struggling to remain afloat. The book definitely reaffirmed my admiration of social workers, it is a brutal profession. As the story and the two narratives fell into place and it became clear to me where the story was headed I was absolutely heartbroken and sick with worry. This book genuinely made my stomach turn and I had to put the book down to breathe as the story ramped up to it’s denouement, the stress of the story was palpable. This book held me in a chokehold racing to finish. I couldn’t put the book down and I stayed up all night to read it, I had to know how it ended.
Another outstanding story by Ruth Anna Evans and one of her more heart wrenching. Against Medical Advice stands above as one of the best pieces of medical horror I’ve ever read.
Quote
“I have to do something. I have to do something. I have to do something. The thought wouldn’t leave his head as he stood in the living room doorway and watched his daughter struggle to breathe. Her eyes were dull. He could tell she was in pain.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Ruth Anna Evans
Ruth Anna Evans is a horror writer, anthologist, and cover designer who lives in the heart of all that is sinister: the American Midwest. She has self-published the horror collection No One Can Help You: Tales of Lost Children and Other Nightmares, along with novellas, novelettes, and several short stories. She is the editor of Ooze: Little Bursts of Body Horror. She also has work appearing in several recent anthologies, including The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse from Hungry Shadow Press. She is the author of What Did Not Die, published by PsychoToxin Press, and the novella Do Not Go In That House from Gloom House Publishing.
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