Foreign Body - review by lalib

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Spoiler:

Spoiler is summary from back cover of book

Spoiler:

I enjoy reading Cook’s work; I’ll admit that right now, I’ve been reading his works for the past four years and enjoyed them immensely. Considering that I am a student of science myself, I find his topics to be of paramount interest to me. Honestly though, I was initially disappointed in how Foreign Body turned out.

Literally by page 25, I know who the bad guys are, what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing it. The only thing left for me as the reader was to wait until they got caught by the good guys. Granted there were some interesting things that happened along the way, murder, kidnapping, assassination attempt, extortion, etc. But when there is literally zero suspense, the action falls short of keeping you on the edge of your seat.

After reading this, you may wonder if you should pick up Foreign Body or not. Surprisingly, I’d recommend you give the book a chance. Why? Well, after reading the book, I was tempted to vent my anger at Cook through this review, but I stopped, and asked myself, “Self, why don’t I like this book?” The reasons I didn’t like the book had more to do with me than with Cook’s ability as a writer. I already knew all about medical tourism, I know what Indian culture is like, I know how corrupt foreign governments are; I’ve experienced all of this first hand. So when Cook takes the reader down this crazy path, I’m so jaded that I didn’t even realize how exotic it would be to his regular readers. Therefore, I happily bestow 4/5 stars to Cook’s Foreign Body.

Foreign Body will really open your eyes to how much of the world lives: corrupt government, ineffective police forces, non existent rights, laws that are arbitrary and harmful to the citizen are all common aspects of much of the world’s daily lives. The book does give you a very heavy dose (in a good way) of Indian culture as well, Cook delves into the mind of a young Indian woman showing the reader why she did the things she did and how she ended up redeeming herself and how her culture influenced her decisions. Not only does the reader enjoy Indian culture, Cook also takes the readers on a spin through an Indian Bazaar and a look at the cremation ceremonies of the Hindus and many other sight seeable locations.

There is also an online show that is the prequel to Foreign Body that came out right before the book. Foreign Body picks up literally where the show left off. I haven’t actually seen the show (its 100 minutes long) because I only just found out about it, granted it’s mentioned in one of the pages before the story actually starts. The book mentions details regarding different characters history, and the prequel adds a bit more depth to said characters personality and background. I’ll give Cook bonus points for this interesting feature to his book! And a short analysis of the webisodes coming soon!

A very good review lalib!

Great review lalib. The online show sounds interesting too.