Thursday, November 10, 2022

The Perfect Predator...

...A scientist's race to save her husband from a deadly superbug. 



From the blurb:  Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world.

My thoughts:  This memoir reads like a medical thriller! I got so caught up in Strathdee's and her husband's story I didn't want to put this book down. It's scary to think that something as small as a bacteria can be so deadly. Did you know that more than 150,000 people die of a superbug infection in the United States each year? And apparently there are at least a dozen different strains of bacteria that have now evolved into these kinds of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. I learned a lot reading this book. And I found Strathdee's quest to find a treatment for her husband completely compelling. She writes so well; even the way she describes the science of it all is readable and easy to understand. This is a fascinating book. I loved it enough to give it 5 stars.

Happy Reading!

41 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Superbugs are pretty terrifying to think about.

      Delete
  2. Terrifying! Sounds like a fascinating read, though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's both compelling and fascinating! I couldn't put it down.

      Delete
  3. Wow, I thought this was fiction! Lovely review!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope. It's a very terrifying true story. But with a happy ending. :D

      Delete
  4. Wow, sounds like a real-life medical thriller. How terrifying!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The fact that this really happened...and could happen again to someone else...is what made this book so scary.

      Delete
  5. That something so tiny can be a mortal threat to us should, in fact, give us all pause. This must have been truly a terrifying experience for this couple. It's good to know that they survived.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tom came close to dying many times in this book. It's a miracle he did survive.

      Delete
  6. That's so scary yet I feel it's an informative read. Thanks for your review, Lark!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a very eye-opening book. And so well told.

      Delete
  7. This sounds so fascinating. I really enjoy these kinds of books. I don't read them often, but I probably should. Adding this one to my list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm very glad I read this one; it's such a compelling story!

      Delete
  8. Yes, I knew we now have super-bugs loose that are antibiotic resistant and that not many scientists are looking for new drugs as there's not a lot of money in it. Wonderful, eh?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's very sad that that's the kind of world we live in nowadays.

      Delete
  9. Wow, 150,000?! I'm in healthcare and didn't know that. Scary. This does sound more like a thriller than non-fiction. I might have to check this one out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It reads pretty fast and it's so compelling. And I don't think anyone likes to really talk about these superbugs because there isn't a great treatment for any of them, which is probably why we don't know more about them.

      Delete
  10. This sounds horrifying, and is made even more startling when you realize that it is 100% reality!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The more she wrote about these kinds of bacteria and how hard they are to defeat the scarier this book got!

      Delete
  11. Sounds great! And those antibiotic- resistant superbugs are scary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They really are. And they're getting to be so common, too.

      Delete
  12. This sounds like something that I would really like. I studied public health in college so this is incredibly interesting to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a very well-written memoir. And so compelling! I hope you get a chance to read it.

      Delete
  13. I thought it was a thriller when I first read the blurb, wow, this is scary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It reads like a thriller in parts because so much is at stake.

      Delete
  14. Happy Friday friend. Regine

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! Hope you have a great weekend. :D

      Delete
  15. This does sound fascinating and it's very scary to read that 150,000 people a year in the US die of these super bug infections. It sounds like the author knows how to write her memoir both heartfelt and also an exciting medical mystery.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She did a really good job telling their story!

      Delete
  16. The thought of a superbug scares the crap out of me so much! Esp in these pandemic days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! What we do if it suddenly started to spread like covid?

      Delete
  17. I can read any type of horror but books like these terrify me!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Wow so this is a true story?! How do you fight off a superbug if you can't use antibiotics? I'm sure I'd learn lots from this book, which sounds quite surprising.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a true story! And they end up using a cocktail of several kinds of bacteriophage viruses to fight his infection...something I'd never even heard about before.

      Delete
  19. Oh wow, this sounds fascinating and terrifying, even more so since it's a memoir rather than fiction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just the fact that there are so many superbugs out there now that don't respond to antibiotics or other treatments scares me!

      Delete