Third Degree
Grade : B

While I found it a bit uneven, I really enjoyed Julie Cross’s Third Degree. What starts out as a fairly light fish-out-of-water story ultimately develops into something much deeper, an examination of what it means to be a successful doctor and healer. All of this in a New Adult title – who could have guessed?

Isabel “Izzy” Jenkins is a bonafide super genius. With an IQ that’s off the charts, she’s already completed college, medical school, and an internship at the University of Chicago Hospital. And the girl is just eighteen! But when she learns that she failed to qualify for a residency program because she failed her “emotional readiness” psych evaluation, Izzy has to face a hard truth – she may be mentally beyond her years, but when it comes to life experiences and being in touch with her emotions, she’s still a kindergartner.

Having six months to kill before she can retake her psych evaluation and needing to gain some of this life experience, Izzy enrolls as a freshman at NIU, a Midwest college known more for its football games than educating geniuses. She meets RA Marshall Collins pretty much the second she steps on campus and finds herself attracted to him pretty much a second after that. Thankfully, Marshall doesn’t seem put off by Izzy’s blunt conversational style or the fact that she’s already a doctor before she’s even allowed to drink legally.

Izzy’s first few weeks on campus aren’t easy. She quickly alienates her roommate and is forced to change classes when her questioning irritates her professors. Connecting with fellow students is difficult, and it’s only Marshall’s friendship that keeps her from giving up altogether. When Marshall becomes seriously ill, Izzy finds herself in doctor mode again, but for the first time in her short career, she finds that knowing all of the medical answers isn’t enough. She realizes that there is a real person behind the diagnosis.

I absolutely loved Izzy. She’s the most realistically socially inept character I’ve ever read, and for very good reason. Between her time in foster care, her genius IQ and unusual education, and the fact that she’s never spent time with people her own age, it made sense that she’d have no idea how to relate to anyone outside of the medical field. Her inappropriate questions, obsession with medicine, and general inability to read emotions in others speaks of Asperger’s Syndrome, and indeed, Izzy must face the idea that she suffers from some form of autism.

I also appreciated the fact that while Izzy does learn how to better blend in with people her own age, she doesn’t become the campus party girl or decide she’d rather attend frat parties than diagnose mystery illnesses. And how refreshing to spend time with a college student who has real problems rather than how to handle the fact that every single hottie on campus is in love with her.

Based on her bio, author Julie Cross does not have a background in medicine, so I give her props for what must have been meticulous research. The medical jargon in Third Degree hit just the right note, complex enough to seem realistic yet not so over the top that I felt confused. Going in I had serious doubts that I’d be able to buy an eighteen-year-old doctor (I had visions of Doogie Howser in my head), but Izzy definitely comes across as the real deal.

Too, when Marshall becomes sick, he suffers from a true illness rather than a superficial, easy-to-fix ailment that serves only to let Izzy show off her medical skills. He is a young man who faces a lifetime of medical procedures and the constant threat that he could relapse at any minute. However, there is never a sense of doom and gloom, and Izzy is clearly the perfect woman for him. The fact that he accepts her stunted emotional state and she accepts his medical issues makes theirs a very sweet love story.

A few things kept this book from being a full A read for me. First, some of the dialogue was a bit wonky. Sometimes it didn’t flow naturally, as if I were reading bits of disjointed conversation. Sometimes sentences didn’t make sense at all. A few times I had that feeling of having listened to someone go on for awhile and realizing I had no idea whatsoever what they were trying to say.

While I liked Izzy as a heroine and Marshall as a hero, and I thought their connection was genuine, the sex between them just didn’t work for me. Part of my problem came from the fact that their first full-on encounter happens when Marshall is very sick. I simply couldn’t buy that a guy in his condition would feel at all like engaging in sexy-times, nor could I imagine being attracted to him when he was in such a poor state. Feverish, sweaty, pale and in pain is just not hot. Too, it almost felt like the sex scenes were included in the book more because they were expected to be there rather than because I felt any real heat between the characters. I liked it so much better when Marshall and Izzy were connecting emotionally. Honestly, after their first encounter I skimmed all of the sex scenes.

In the end, I can definitely recommend Third Degree for anyone looking for a story that features a truly unique heroine. You won't find any of the cliches that litter so many new adult titles. Indeed, I don't think there was a single tattoo in the whole book!

Reviewed by Jenna Harper
Grade : B
Book Type: New Adult

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : February 19, 2015

Publication Date: 2014/04

Review Tags: doctor

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Jenna Harper

I'm a city-fied suburban hockey mom who owns more books than I will probably ever manage to read in my lifetime, but I'm determined to try.
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