This is a strange book.  Most of the reviews say it’s a story about a doctor (Magnus) and the three women that have influenced his life. That’s true, but really it’s four women, and while they may have all “influenced” him, by the end of the book, I don’t feel like I understand or know him or the women very well. His mother and his assistant seem to be the most interesting and developed characters–his fiancee and his comatose patient, not so much. In the opening scene, the doctor temporarily paralyzes himself as part of his research, and that scene never gets an explanation.  Why open with it and then not return to its importance? Overall, the story felt disjointed and Magnus a distant character (a purposeful distant, I suppose), but somehow I wanted to keep reading.  The various relationships are interesting, and because I expected more development of them, I wanted to finish the book. So… it’s a weird sort of page turner with a unique premise (trying to communicate with comatose patients) that ultimately left me mostly forgetting what the book was about a month after I read it.