Matters of Choice

The Cole Trilogy, Book 3

By: Noah Gordon

Narrated by: Hayden Bishop

A portrait of a talented and courageous woman physician who stares at her reflection in the glass ceiling, and decides to seek and find a more meaningful life.

Roberta Jeanne d'Arc Cole is favored to be named associate chief of medicine at a Boston hospital. She is married to a surgeon. They own a trophy residence on historic Brattle Street in Cambridge and a summer house in the Berkshire Hills.

Everything melts away. Her gender and her work at an abortion clinic cost her the hospital appointment. Her marriage fails. Crushed, she goes to the farmhouse in Western Massachusetts, thinking to sell it, and finds an unexpected life. How she continues to fight for every woman's right to choose, while acknowledging her own ticking clock and maternal yearning, makes this prize-winning third story of the Cole trilogy as relevant as tomorrow.

©1996 Lise Gordon, Michael Seay Gordon and The Jamie Gordon Trust (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Loved it

I loved this book and was sad when it was over. Discarded negative reviews which reflected political views.

Too short!

Wonderful conclusion to the trilogy that brings the practice of medicine to modern technology and current issues. I only wish it was as long as the first 2. I miss the characters and want to know how the next chapters of their lives unfold.

Not one of Noah's better stories

There were a lot of bad reviews on this but I accidentally bought it and decided to go for it. The narrator was not bad. It always takes me a bit to get used to the narrator. The story did have some political issues and about the health care system (which I agree) but I listen to get away from it but in the end the story was better than I hoped and glad I did. Can't wait to listen to this trilogy down the road.

Disappointed in #3

The last of this trilogy has so many poor transitions in the first 30 chapters I almost gave up. As the first two were so engaging I read on. About chapter 42 the familiar I density and detail came out. But Noah skirted around the religious and social issues until the very last chapter. It is out of character from the declarative first two books. So, it turned into a chick book. The narrator was tentative about tone as well as appropriate inflection until about chapter 10. Not my best read but OK .

Third book not as good

I liked the first 2 books much better. I felt "talked at" instead of invited to be part of the lives of the characters in this book. The Physician and Shaman were delightful.

Aggravating

This is pro abortion book with a story wrapped around it. The story is so-so because the author’s biases keeps getting in the way of a compelling story. As the pro abortion under any circumstances biases kept being pushed, I found myself getting more and more annoyed. This book is not worth the download.

It’s Up to You

With 2 hours left to listen I gave up. The first two books of The Cole Trilogy were exciting and I cared about the protagonist. Noah Gordon can be an excellent storyteller but the plot of M of C can’t seem to find out which way it wants to go; what to concentrate on to keep us interested. Then there’s the narrator. Ouch! This was probably the weakest part of the audiobook, and for an audiobook, the most important. Speaking of important, that word was pronounced by this narrator - impordent. I found myself thinking - She can’t possibly be a professional! Her work to prepare for this job should have included how to pronounce English words she’d never come across before, as well as learning how to pronounce words in another language; in this case, Hebrew. I’m speaking about words which every English speaker knows, such as challah (pronounced HULLAH) where she went with what can only be described as a guess. She pronounced it exactly as written with a hard CH as in CHampion. - CHALLA. The worst, though, was her own accent. Didn’t was pronounced - di-int. Wouldn’t became wuh-int. Curtains was pronounced curdens and so on. It’s a shame because her performance, barring the strange pronunciation of everyday words, was very good, but in the end it was the ‘GOING NOWHERE FAST’ plot and writing that killed my interest. But … that’s just my opinion. Right? You may love it.

disappointing, unending and pointless.

after the first two books in the series this was very disappointing. no much of a story

Leftist propaganda pretending to be a book

Even if the strong political agenda was left out it would still have been a boring and terrible story. This book really put a stain on the trilogy! Do yourself a favor, read the first two and don’t bother with this one..

Not so much a story as a political statement

This is the least of the trilogy. To much time was spent making points about abortion and universal health care.