Daphne

Daphne by Will Boast          Audio Book  7 hours,  30 mins.         Hardback Book:  288 pages                    s

An excellently told story and great first novel by author Will Boast.     His lead character, Daphne, suffers from a disease that causes her body to paralyze and brings unconsciousness with it whenever she goes into emotional overload.    Right at the get go you know this is going to be an interesting story.   Then to top it off she works in a lab that does animal testing on dogs.   During the story, the testing that is being done on the dogs in the lab are coronary procedures.   They induce heart attacks/srokes in the dogs then do experimental procedures to bring them back over and over until the animals actually die from all the trauma their bodies undergo.   There are animal rights protestors outside the lab and Daphne and one of her lab interns, Stacey each deal with the guilt over what they are doing to the poor animls even though Daphne excuses the procedures in her mind by acknowledging the procedural findings they are bringing to light in coronary patient healthcare.   Daphne’s life is full of ups and downs in dealing with her past – her mother was distant and an alcoholic, her father was “handsy” in inappropriate ways to her and to her friends, then when her disease started showing up and she is thought to have multiple sclerosis then finally cataplexy.   She loses a lot of lovers when overcome in the moment -she collapses in a death-like state.    The first time it happened the guy thought he was too much for her and had killed her.    After trying to go more slowly later but having the same effect, she shies away from romance for a long time.   She has one great friend who loves to drink and pass around her business cards who is very supportive of Daphne.   Daphne also attends a group session every week of people who suffer from the same disease she does.    There are lots of things going on in the story and Daphne is such a likeable character you really feel for her and all she is going through and have to admire the resilency in her character that keeps her moving forward.    Excellent book.  I would recommend it to anyone who likes fiction.