ARC REVIEW: The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha

Having spent the last twenty-something years with her nose in a textbook, brilliant and driven Norah Kapadia has just landed the medical residency of her dreams. But after a disastrous first day, she's ready to quit. Disgruntled patients, sleep deprivation, and her duty to be the "perfect Indian daughter" have her questioning her future as a doctor. Enter chief resident Ethan Cantor. He's everything Norah aspires to be: respected by the attendings, calm during emergencies, and charismatic with the patients. As he morphs from Norah’s mentor to something more, it seems her luck is finally changing. When a fatal medical mistake is made, pulling Norah into a cover-up, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the secret. What if “doing no harm” means risking her career and the future for which she’s worked so hard?

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I went back and forth with my rating on this one. I was very intrigued for a large part of the story. I thought the author did such a great job with the day to day life of an intern: the crazy patients, the attending who thought they were God, the lack of sleep and junk food, the lack of a social life, etc. It was all very interesting. I was confused because the premise made it seem as though it was more of a romance. The romance played second fiddle to Norah's life as an intern though. Don't get me wrong, I was fine with that. But if you are looking for a romance, you should look elsewhere. I was also disappointed because the main part of the plot didn't occur until about 70% of the way through the book and when it did, it was skimmed over and seemed to resolve itself more quickly than I would like. 

I thought that the author did a very good job with the character of Norah and with the changes that she went through during the course of her internship. She started out very naive and very much a sort of doormat with people, especially with her mother. I loved the parts that revolved around Norah's family. Yes, the dynamics were extremely frustrating. Between her mother's grief and her mother's desire to see her married instead of a doctor to her brother and sister-in-law's wish that she would give up on her dreams to make things easier on them, it was all a bit much. But those dynamics helped explain why Norah was the way that she was. 

Besides the fact that it took a while to get to the main events of the plot, I did have a few issues with Norah's choices at the end of the book. I thought she was more assertive and that was fantastic, and I thought that the choices she made were understandable. However, I didn't really think where she ended up fit with her goals or the rest of the story. That part didn't really make sense to me. Also, she had done a few things that were questionable and suggested that she was going down the same path as her mother, but that part was never addressed. It seemed like the author forgot about that part and maybe Norah just ended those things on her own.

This book was pretty good in certain areas and definitely an interesting look at the life of an intern, but I still had a few issues with the pacing in certain areas and Norah's character arc.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐