Novels No. 112

 

Reese Witherspoon & Harlan Coben. Gone Before Goodbye. Large Print. USA: Grand Central Publishing, 2025.

Humanitarian surgeon Dr Marc Adams is swarmed by a mob of armed, manic killers in a remote African refugee camp. Suddenly we are a year later with his wife, Dr Maggie McCabe, who worked with Marc in war-torn areas of the world. Their friend, Dr Trace Packer, was a partner in the charity they formed, called WorldCures Alliance where they were making radical new transplant developments. Trace disappeared after Marc’s savage death and Maggie desperately wants to find him. But her medical licence is suspended, the charity is disgraced, and she’s persona non grata among her colleagues—it’s not at all clear why, or what had happened. She’s now at the point of poverty with sister Sharon, a polymath scientific genius. Out of the blue, her former mentor Dr Evan Barlow, offers Maggie a highly confidential “concierge surgery” job that more than pays off her debts.

With Maggie being flown in style to the client in Russia, events or characters verge on farce. Oleg Ragoravich lives in remote palatial splendour, a true oligarch. Maggie’s job: some facial changes for him, and breast enhancement for his young girlfriend Nadia—who secretly speaks English but refuses to divulge personal info. What is Nadia hiding? Was Oleg involved in the collapse of WorldCures? After the surgery, Maggie needs rescuing, finding allies in her search for Trace—Marc’s outlandish biker father Porkchop, and Sharon’s ultra-cool AI app. The authors pile on many tangents in a twisting mix of opulent lifestyle, financial fraud, medical spies, organ harvesting, scientific experiments, and eternal youth-seekers. Deeper issues and serious medical ethics are addressed.

In this writers’ collaboration (why are these celebrity-partnerships becoming popular?), a few areas tend to zoom right over-the-top credibility-wise. Background exposition is minimal, the characters are lively for the most part, and surgical discussions are fascinating. A lot to unpack here.

Insights?

▪ It would be easy to say they—she, Marc, Trace—created WorldCures Alliance for purely altruistic reasons. That had been a good story—three combat doctors who saw a need and eschewed the comforts of home to save the needy and revolutionize health care, but that felt too much like spin to Maggie. (56)

▪ “You’ve always been a risk-taker, Maggie. It’s what drew you to the military. It’s what drew you to provide care in some of the most dangerous places on the planet.” (75-6)

▪ “Five million put into your account at Merrill Lynch right now. The other five million when you’re done.” (83)

▪ “When well done, the humanoid AI can replicate the dead person’s speech patterns, personality, temperament, mannerisms, intelligence, tics, gestures—everything that made the deceased unique.” (129)

▪ “All of you who live in comfort can afford your ethics and morals. You want to judge me by them. How, you wonder, could I sell my own kidney?” (163)

▪ Using the momentum from the fall and roll, she jumps behind the firewood just as the next shot rings out. When you watch someone fire a handgun on television, it seems like a pretty accurate weapon. It is not. (215-6)

▪ Everyone has been playing head games with her. She knows that now. None of this is accidental or coincidental. (242)

▪ “Do you see how it looks?” Nadia continues. “You leave WorldCures—and then on his very last humanitarian mission, someone sells out your husband.” (324)

Jesse Q. Sutanto. You Will Never Be Me. USA: Berkley/ Penguin/Random House, 2024.

What have I done? Entered Gen Z land? From way back on my waiting list, this book popped up. Tempted to pass because of the initially glib tone, I braved it out. First was popular beauty and fashion influencer Meredith (Mer), who’d had a fight with her bestie, “mom” influencer Aspen. These influencers, it’s all about followers and sponsors, you know. Numbers. They dispense their advice for self-improvement and the perfect home on Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook – all over the internet. Cool photos are a must. Not to say that the women don’t work hard at their chosen careers. It’s not easy balancing motherhood and family with the demands of ever-fresh postings that feature coping skills and inspiration for their fans. Like, you too can have the ideal home, cutely dressed kids, mouth-watering recipes, just follow me, and use this product for the whitest laundry. Achieving such perfection means their anxiety levels are often through the roof.

Aspen’s income from this enterprise far exceeds husband Ben’s (trouble coming there, naturally). In a milieu where authenticity is the highest virtue, how genuine are her posts? Does she never spill the veggie smoothie, burn the chicken, have a screaming child? Do I care? Snooze. Meredith had mentored her friend from day one until Aspen’s ratings soared above everyone else’s; using her family and home as props clearly paid off. Hoping to catch up, Meredith switched to the same domestic theme, but her jealousy was so predominant, it lead to secretly sabotaging Aspen’s popularity and numbers.

Because I’m still w-a-i-t-i-n-g for my next TPL arrival, I slug on through the scheming-manipulating-superficial-artificial girlishness, hoping for a dramatic diversion. And it does happen—whether believable or not. There’s a demographic out there that will love this novel.

Meredith

▪ Damn it, one of this year’s resolutions was to stop being so mean, and it’s not even February yet. (8)

▪ You’re sitting there thinking I’m this horrible jealous bitch who can’t handle her best friend’s success, and that’s not at all the case. (37)

▪ “Wait, what?” Tanya says. “So you guys used to be besties, then she got big and dumped you?” (105)

▪ “But then one day I just ... snapped. I exploded on her. I told her she was the fakest friend I’ve ever had.” (148)

Aspen

▪ But nowadays, it feels like it’s the entire household versus me, and I don’t understand how it got to be like this when I’m the one keeping everything afloat. (49)

▪ He of all people knows how much space Mer takes up in my life—how much it ripped me apart when we had that fight. (53)

▪ “Um, well, a lot of them are saying you’re sort of, you know, a little bit fake?” Then she quickly adds, “I disagree, obviously, but uh.” (88)

▪ “I’m a momfluencer, and one of the many reasons I love what I do is because it connects me to other moms. We help one another feel less alone.” (140)