I am really excited to have Erynn on the blog with me today and we are discussing a medical thriller by Daniel Kalla called Lost Immunity. I totally understand if you would rather not read about pandemic times so feel free to skip this book. However, if you are curious and interested to learn about some of the nuances of rolling out mass vaccination programs and the stresses of such huge responsibilities, this is definitely a thoughtful read to keep you engaged till the very end. Take a look at the synopsis below and then Erynn and I will discuss the book.
An ordinary day
The city of Seattle is stunned when a deadly bacteria tears through a nearby Bible camp. Early tests reveal the illness is a form of meningitis, and the camp’s residents are among its most vulnerable victims: children and teenagers.
A new vaccine
Facing a rapidly rising death rate, Seattle’s chief public health officer, Lisa Dyer, and her team quickly take all steps necessary to contain the devastating outbreak. And when further testing reveals that the strain of the bacteria is one that caused catastrophic losses in Iceland six months before, Lisa decides to take a drastic step: she contacts Nathan Hull, vice president of a pharmaceutical company that is doing final-phase trials on a viable vaccine, and asks him to release it early for use on the city’s population.
An epidemic in the making
Lisa gets the go-ahead on her controversial plan, despite the protests of dubious government officials, anti-vaxxers, and even those on her own team. Vaccine clinics roll out across the city, and the risky strategy appears to be working, leaving Lisa, Nathan, and thousands of others breathing a sigh of relief. Until people start dying from mysterious and horrific causes—and the vaccine itself is implicated.
But what if science isn’t to blame?
Content Notes: Depiction of child death, cancer, medical content, vaccines, anti-vaxxing sentiments, pandemic.
Lost Immunity
The Reading Discussion
Lost Immunity was the Canadian Book Enablers pick of the month for June. Erynn, was there something in particular that drew you to the book?
Two things come to mind! I always feel like I don’t read enough books written by Canadian authors, so that was definitely a motivation to pick up the book when you first mentioned it to me. I admit I also had a grim curiosity, ever since the pandemic began I’ve been one of those weirdos drawn to pandemic and apocalypse stories.
Since this was a more realistic setting without being too drastic in terms of scale (the virus only affects two cities total) it ended up being a good mid-point between wanting to know more about how these kinds of situations are handled from the inside and the chaos that I was looking for in a story.
On the Characters
I think we got a fair share of both! I enjoyed the fast-paced storyline and the different perspectives. Lisa as the Chief Public Health Official was a strong protagonist. Through her, it was clear how stressful pandemic situations are, especially when the mortality rate is high and young kids are the ones at risk. I felt like the choices in front of her were quite tough and though I did not think she knew enough about the vaccine to want to adopt it, you made a great point in our text conversation that a choice had to be made.
Agreed, I found the pacing of the book excellent, I was quite literally drawn along on a string from the beginning wanting to know more about what was going to happen. While yeah I felt like Lisa rushed into using an unknown vaccine, she was put in a difficult position where she had to make a choice one way or the other and lives were at risk regardless of what she did. I liked how she ultimately decided to trust science even if that science wasn’t as thorough as we would expect for those important life-or-death decisions.
I liked the relationships portrayed in the book around her – her boss whose job she has taken over, her colleagues, her sister and husband. The side of the story that dealt with her marriage life was a good addition in my mind to show how much these pandemic situations take over our lives, especially if one is a healthcare professional, and it can be extra hard to manage family life.
I loved the strong female relationship between Lisa and her boss. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book where a relationship like that is portrayed not in a negative light but in an immensely positive one (well, besides the circumstances present in the book). On the other hand, Lisa’s marriage kinda made me want to rip my hair out haha. Her husband frustrated me to no end. I really liked the contrast between that female/female friendship and traditional marriage.
It was definitely a frustrating relationship to read!
What did you think about the other characters in the book and the decisions they had to make?
Other points of views in the story were Nathan from Delaware Pharmaceuticals and Max, a naturopath who is part of the anti-vaxxer movement. I found it really interesting that Nathan was not willing to launch his vaccine product. I really liked his cautious attitude as I would like these major medical corporations to be careful before rolling out their experimental drugs.
On the Settling
Max’s point of view was an engaging one as well. He is an educated man who wants to raise awareness about the harmful effects of vaccines, seeing how he thinks it affects his family. What did you think of Max and the anti-vaxxers sentiments in this book?
While I don’t personally agree with the anti-vaxxer movements, the book helped me see how for a lot of people, their beliefs are rooted in a genuine concern for their family. To me, outright rejecting vaccines isn’t the answer. While I won’t go into detail about it in this discussion, I do have a personal experience related to the “money-hungry Big Pharma” that made me really sympathetic toward the perspective of Max, the anti-vaxxer who believes his son is autistic because of a vaccine. However, I’d never really put a lot of thought into that personal situation until reading this book and Max’s perspective. It does make me wish there was a middle ground. Life-saving medicine shouldn’t scare so many people, but unfortunately we have to contend with the mistakes of the past.
I was chatting with my partner about this. Do you think public health individuals in recent times have done a good job portraying the importance of taking vaccines and how they lead to herd immunity? I felt that it was only after reading this book and the author’s notes that I finally understood the gravity of the situation.
To be honest, not really? I admit I haven’t been keeping up with news about the ongoing pandemic for the last 8 months or so (it’s just too exhausting, on top of the isolation, to worry about every small change, new cases, etc) but never once do I remember reading anything about the importance of herd immunity. Whenever “herd immunity” was mentioned in relation to the virus, it always came from my partner, too, haha! But like I said, that could be because I haven’t been paying much attention to the news as of late.
I think one of my main lessons from Lost Immunity was that the ones who one perceives will do the most harm (people who strongly disagree with our view, for example), are not always the culprit. When things started to go wrong with the vaccine, Lisa and the FBI desperately wanted to believe it was the anti-vaxxers. There are so many intricacies to why people believe what they do and not everyone shows up with a picket sign.
Exactly, people can have genuine concerns about how things are done, be that because of personal experiences or moral differences, but because you don’t agree with them, that doesn’t automatically make them the enemy, the bad guy, aggressors, villains, etc… we live in a world where people are more divided than ever, and sometimes it can be hard to look past someone’s beliefs and see that they are human, too, not a blank representation of something “evil.”
The pandemic and its dramatic pace was written really well in the book. The one chapter perspectives about the infected people helped me stay engaged with the story and cast a wider net over the experiences of the general population. Visiting the ER with Lisa was terrifying and nerve wrecking, especially when side effects started showing up.
Usually I’m opposed to so many short-lived perspectives, but in this book they were definitely an asset in making the story feel more engaging and believable.
Our Critiques of Lost Immunity (contains spoilers)
I think the part where Lost Immunity fell short for me is at one major place: I felt that the ending was not convincing. The characters and settling alluded to something else and I could not logically follow that into the ending. I do not understand that to prove a point, someone would go to this extent. How can someone hurt innocent people to prove a point and to be naive that it won’t hurt them? What felt like an anti-vaxxer awareness book for a bit turned into altogether something else?
Yeah, I immensely enjoyed the book (besides a few details) up until about 80%(?) of the way through, where the identity of the one responsible for the vaccine-related deaths became clearer. While I believed that the writing leaned way too hard into the anti-anti-vaxxer sentiments for me to believe that the one responsible was the obvious answer that all the arrows pointed to, I also found it very, very difficult to believe who the “real” culprit was.
I don’t think we can really discuss this part without more spoilers… but ultimately, for me, it comes down to the fact that it takes a very certain type of person who would willingly and intentionally harm children–possibly kill them. Especially during a pandemic already targeting children! I think there would have been a more appropriate time for this character to get their “revenge” that didn’t involve harming/killing more innocent people, like what happened to them.
And yeah, maybe at the end of the day, a little different character development and more backstory could have convinced us otherwise, but then it won’t be a quick book, would it? 😀
Haha absolutely. The thing about writing is that a good storyteller can convince you of anything… and I think the pieces were in place to make the ending as thrilling as it was meant to be, but unfortunately the events just didn’t unfold in a way that was believable in my mind.
Reading Experience Summary
Will you pick up this book? Add to your virtual bookshelves on Goodreads and Storygraph.
Lost Immunity is now available in stores. Be sure to check your local library and support them.
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
About the Author of Lost Immunity
(from Goodreads and his website)
Born, raised, and still residing in Vancouver, Kalla spends his days (and sometimes nights) working as an ER Physician in an urban teaching hospital.
The idea for his first medical thriller, PANDEMIC, sprang from his clinical experience in facing the SARS crisis of 2003. He has written five science thrillers and or medical mysteries, delving into themes and topics as diverse as superbugs, drug addiction, prions, DNA evidence, pandemics and patient abuse.
Kalla’s last book, THE FAR SIDE OF THE SKY, is a historical novel set in Second World War Shanghai against the dramatic backdrop of converging cultures and ideologies. His latest, RISING SUN, FALLING SHADOW continues the story of the Adler family through 1943, the bleakest year in war-torn Shanghai.
His books have been translated into eleven languages, and two have been optioned for feature films.
Daniel received his MD from the University of British Columbia. He is married and the proud father of two girls in a home predominated by the XX chromosome (even his beloved Labrador retriever, Lola, is female.)
Learn more about him on his website and connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.
Many thanks to the publisher for proving me a review copy of the book! Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
General Discussion
You mentioned that you have been reading a lot of pandemic and dystopian fiction! What are some of your favorites so far?
I can’t say that I’ve been reading a *lot* as I’ve been too busy writing… 😉
Lol ok some. 😀
At the end of 2020 I read the Maze Runner trilogy, which was a YA series about the world torn apart by a virus that eventually covered people with horrible burns and turned them crazy and violent. Only the wealthy could afford an antidote that temporarily slowed the effects of the virus, but there was no vaccine available. I think the books were really popular a couple of years ago (and there are movies!)
On the fantasy spectrum, I also read the first book in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy (I loved it and look forward to reading the rest of the series soon) where a devastating earthquake/eruption destroys civilization as the world knows it. Very, very cool book with an awesome magic system!
I also have my eyes on Malice by Pintip Dunn, but for the most part I’ve immersed myself in virus/apocalypse-related TV… of which there are quite a few good ones I’ve watched lately.
Have you read/watched any in a similar vein lately besides Lost Immunity?
I read The Mother Code earlier in the pandemic and it still remains my favorite book about a pandemic. I also picked up Wool which was fascinating, a dystopia where a community of humans is stuck in an underground silo.
I remembered that I loved reading Robin Cook when I was growing up. He is also a doctor, writing lots of medical thrillers. Would you read another medical thriller, Erynn? I am hoping to read one of Robin Cook’s newer works, Viral, out in August. He is still writing books at 80 years of age – it’s awesome!
I think I would! This was my first medical thriller, and I liked the book enough to see what else the genre has to offer! Maybe we can read that one together too, heh.
Yes absolutely! He is a bit of a legend.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us today! Let us know if the comments what you thought of this post, if you will pick the book or have already read it. 🙂
Cover image: Photo by Brandon Holmes on Unsplash
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