Introducing In Stitches
Full of heart and humor, a memoir about becoming a doctor that’s unlike anything you’ve ever read before.
All Tony Youn ever wanted was to fit in. One of two Asian American kids in a small midwestern town, he was tall and thin with Coke bottle glasses, Hannibal Lecter headgear, a bowl cut, and a protruding jaw that grew even faster than his comic book collection. He finally got his chance senior year as he lay strapped in an oral surgeon’s chair having his jaw broken and reset—a brutal makeover that led him to his calling.
Egged on by his overachieving Korean father (“Doctor never get fired.”), Tony spent the next four years mired in the angst, flubs, triumphs, nonstop studying, intermittent heavy drinking, and sexual frustration of medical school. He entered a shy, skinny nerd with no nerve, no game, and no clue. He left a doctor.
Heartwarming and laugh out loud funny, In Stitches is a universal coming of age story about a kid who found the best in himself by bringing out the best in others and finally learned to be comfortable in his own skin.
In Stitches has been chosen as a 2012 Michigan Notable Book.
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Reviews For In Stitches
Publisher’s Weekly: In his first book Youn looks back from the cushy perspective of the plastic surgeon at his transformation, letting readers in on a secret: it wasn’t easy. Young Youn was an outcast, an “Asian American…in near wall-to-wall whiteness”; his adolescence was an accumulation of sour moments eventually leading to medicine. But the journey, as Youn describes it, is hilarious. A dedicated student, he spends much of his time with his roommates in the “nerd room.” He practices sutures on pig’s feet and chicken breasts. His roommates tutor him in matters of love and lust. Only two hours into his very first rotation, Youn loses his first patient; “Patients die. Get used to it. This is a hospital,” the attending barks at him. As Youn moves through specialty rotations, agonizing over what to select, his father urges him to make the right choice: pediatrics, for instance, means a life of “tiny people, tiny dollah!” Ironically, it’s a night during Youn’s Peds rotation that changed the course of his life. Youn’s description of his journey from high-school outcast to rock star plastic surgeon is full of fascinating stories and laced with self-deprecating humor in the midst of dark desperation, providing a refreshing insight into medicine.
USA Today: “Laugh out loud”
Detroit Free Press: “Readable, funny, disarming, and heartfelt”
Huffington Post: “In Stitches is a sometimes funny, sometimes painful, sometimes heartwarming recount of Dr. Youn’s experiences on the road to becoming a doctor… a Scrubs meets David Sedaris story-line…”
NPR: “A humorous but at times disturbing story of becoming a board-certified plastic surgeon.”
Lansing State Journal: “In Stitches is a fast-paced, mesmerizing autobiography that’s laced with dark humor and memorable scenes, including his discovery that a woman he’s dating works as a carnival fire-eater.”
Kirkus Reviews: ”Youn writes amusingly about his expectations… His hospital training experiences are described in humorous detail… [and] the story of his Korean family and his struggle to find his path have great appeal.”
