Story for the Week
I have a pretty low pain tolerance. What makes it worse is that I am also a klutz, so I hurt myself…a lot. Never without a bruise, I go through life walking into the corners of the walls, tripping up steps, bumping my head on things I clearly should have seen. I am so clumsy that I will find a bruise somewhere on my body and have no idea where it came from because I just run into so many things. This is who I have always been.
Along with the clumsiness and low pain tolerance, I hold a strong dislike of needles. As an adult, I can get shots. I experience a blood draw at least once a year for my annual physical. It takes a lot of mental preparation for me to relax my arm when I know a needle is coming because I know it will hurt worse if I tense up. And don’t even get me started on watching. I can’t even watch a needle stick on television, let alone in real life.
When I was a child well into middle school and long after I should have been able to get shots like a normal person, my father still had to hold me in place. In sixth grade, I broke my arm in P.E., and they put me under to set it. I weighed all of 97 pounds soaking wet back then, had a huge splint immobilizing my entire arm from the shoulder. It took seven people to hold me still so they could give me a shot to relax me. Not kidding…and not normal.
After college, I went through treatment for cystic acne. When I had bad breakouts, my dermatologist would inject the cysts with cortisone during my visits. Clearly she wasn’t sticking a full-blown needle into my face. It was literally the tip of the needle, and luckily I could close my eyes 🫣, take deep breaths, wiggle my toes because that’s how I refocus my energy. 😉 My sister was with me at one appointment, and she said she realized I had gotten over my desperate fear of needles when she watched the doctor injecting medication into my face.
When my husband Dennis was alive, he tested his blood sugar as a Type 2 diabetic. From an injury when he was much younger, he had limited mobility in his right hand and no feeling in his fingertips or his palm, so I tested his sugar every day. I couldn’t see the needle pricking his finger, so it was fine. But when the doctor first prescribed insulin and Dennis suggested that I would have to give it to him, I literally felt sick to my stomach. I sat in another room for about 10 minutes trying not to panic. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that Corinne could give it to him. Corinne doesn’t like receiving shots herself, but she was happy to do the job for her father. 🤪
I tell you all of that to ask you this. For someone with a low pain tolerance who does not like needles, how do I explain my overwhelming desire to get my ears pierced my sophomore year of college? I think back on it now and still have no idea what possessed me. And honestly, the first one hurt so bad, I almost didn’t go through with the second. 😬 I’m glad I did it. I don’t wear earrings every day anymore, but I do like to put them in when I go out. And Dennis was always really good about buying very nice jewelry for me.
Corinne has toyed with the idea of getting her ears pierced, but she seems to share my pain tolerance level. There are so many more varieties of clip-on earrings than there were when I was her age, so she has a huge collection of earrings. I recently bought her a holiday variety pack for her birthday. And every once in a while, she will see a video of someone getting their ears pierced, and she responds with something to the effect of, “Nope. I’m good.”
And suffice it to say, tattoos will never be a thing for us. 🤣 I mean, I can never say never for Corinne, but for me…not happening…ever. Now if we couldn’t feel any pain, like a character in the book reviewed below, that might be another story. But for now, I’m good with the single piercings and no tattoos that I have. 😉
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐½
3.5 Stars for You Can’t Hurt Me by Emma Cook
296 pages
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Publication Date: November 5, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Hanover Square Press.
Publisher’s Description
Everyone has heard about the case of Eva Reid. Ever since she was born, she’s felt no pain: she can get a paper cut, break a limb and even give birth without feeling a single thing. Her story has long captivated the minds of reporters and researchers—including Dr. Nate Reid, Eva’s husband and acclaimed scientist, renowned for his work in the Pain Laboratory. Also among them is Anna Tate, a ruthless journalist with a dark past of her own.
When Eva is suddenly found dead inside her home, it raises a flurry of questions about the last night of her life—and who might’ve been involved. Anna finds herself growing increasingly obsessed with Eva’s case: her protected, painless existence, her promising career as a psychotherapist, and especially her toxic relationship with the alluring Dr. Reid, whom Eva met and married as his former patient. But what other secrets could they be hiding?
When Dr. Reid embarks on the process of writing a book about Eva, an opportunity arises for Anna to work on it alongside him. As she slowly inserts herself into their home to uncover what’s fact and what’s fiction, shocking discoveries await her—and not everyone may come out unscathed….
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Main Characters:
- Anna Tate – 34-year-old journalist for a magazine, writes an article about neuroscientist Dr. Nate Reid, hired to ghost write his memoir, her mother died when she was 11 and her father when she was a teenager
- Tony Thorpe – Anna’s 40-year-old half brother, adopted by his stepfather but he chose to use his father’s name as an adult, protective of Anna since they lost their mother and her father
- Dr. Nate Reid – neuroscientist who studies the biology of pain, studied and then married Eva who could not feel physical pain, currently planning his memoir since Eva’s untimely death
- Priya James – Nate’s publisher, rumored to be possessive about her clients
Anna Tate is obsessed with Eva Reid, a sculptor training to be a psychotherapist who can’t feel physical pain, marries a doctor who studies pain, and tragically dies while her husband is away. Anna writes an article about Dr. Nate Reid for a magazine and puts herself in the running to ghost write his memoir.
Of course Anna is selected for the memoir or there really wouldn’t be much of a book here. Anna spends time getting to know Nate, getting to know who Eva was, how they met. They work at Nate and Eva’s home, and when Anna finds herself alone on a couple of occasions, she snoops, trying to make her way into Eva’s bedroom where she has been strictly forbidden to go.
She is obsessed. One of the big problems I had with this book, though, is that I don’t know why she’s obsessed. She interviewed Eva once for a piece that sounds like it never ran, yet she acts like she knew her well. I assumed she had some connection to Eva.
The book is narrated from Anna’s point of view, so we only get the information Anna offers us. It makes for a slow-moving beginning of the book as she gets to know Nate. It took me a while to get into it. But I cannot fathom why Anna needed to be the ghost writer for Nate’s memoir. And the further into the story we get, the seemingly more obsessed Anna gets. She even starts to question whether Eva’s sister’s belief that Nate caused his wife’s death might actually be true.
I have to admit, it kept me reading because I really wanted to discover the driver behind Anna’s desire to ghost write this particular book. The story holds some unexpected revelations and twists that I appreciated, so the back half of the book picked up the pace a bit. At the end of it, though, I was still left wanting. It was just okay for me, with the extra half star for the twists.
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