Georgie Carroll is a very funny but more importantly a very good person. This is my verdict after reading her memoir, Off the Charts. Georgie has been a nurse in England and Australia since 1990 and she is the nurse you would want looking after you if you were in hospital. Her warmth, empathy and brilliant sense of humour couldn’t help but make even the sickest patient feel a little bit better just seeing her appear in the ward!
Georgie’s adventures, both in her job and in her life away from nursing, are related in a way that had me laughing out loud a lot of the time. She can extract humour from just about any situation and I have just recommended the book to a nurse friend who is going to get much delight from reading it.
I don’t like spoilers but as an illustration of Georgie’s clear, fair minded outlook on life here is just one quote from one of her beautifully insightful observations on puberty: “Many teenagers become disillusioned by their adults and believe them to be idiots. The more self aware adults have known they are idiots for a while and are relieved that the cat is out of the bag. Conversely, the teenager believes they know everything while being deliciously dumb.” She is seeing both sides in this as she does always in her kind, non-judgmental way. Her mother, children and husband must love her madly; I know I do and I have never even met her!
In summary: this is a sweet, kind, raunchy, hilarious book whose overriding message is, in the words of Georgie’s former countrymen: all you need is love.
5 out of 5, no question.
Published in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd.
Looks good!
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