Review: Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C Douglas

Here is one that I read over the summer. I hope you enjoy. (Really though, this was a strange, yet great, book!)

This is the trickiest book to describe. I'm going to go find an official blurb....


When Robert Merrick's life is saved at the expense of the life of an eccentric but adored surgeon, the carefree playboy is forced to reevaluate his own path. Merrick embarks on a course of anonymous philanthropy, inspired by reading the doctor's private papers. An engaging and dramatic story of personal redemption and private sacrifice, this spiritual tale has served as an inspiration for both the stage and screen.

(Mind now. I didn't write that!)

I'm giving this book 4 stars.

1: I'm not even sure where to start. I think with "I read this book after watching the movie, the one with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson." And I am 99% positive that had I read first, watched second, I would have been very very let down by the movie. It was a great movie, but the story was so much deeper than the movie let on. And so much different. There were definitely plot differences.

2: I was a little shocked. I wasn't quite sure what to think of this book. It's religious, surely. But not biblical. Not quite. Between the scientology and the "Major Personality" bits, I was thoroughly confused. But let confusion reign, for when I get a book like this, I'm going to finish it. It was quite the story.

3: Definitely wanted a Sharpie.... for sure a Sharpie was needed. But I chugged along, always trying to understand the exact method for this "personality infusion" going on.

4: It's a book with characters on every page that you'll love. Nancy and her motherly role towards Bobby. Helen and her heart-ache and uncontrollable step-daughter. Bobby himself, with quite a few things going for and against him. You find yourself drawn into their quarrels and fun and studies and lives without your knowledge and almost without your consent.

5: I guess it is a romance, and yet.... it's the softest dose of romance ever put in a romance novel. You hardly think of it for pages on end, and then Bobby can't do a thing for Helen on his mind.

All-in-all, a successful adventure, I reckon. I'm not sorry I read it. In fact, I was hard-pressed to put it down.