History Literature / Rubbernecker

* ComfortingTheWidow: Mr Deal isn't really a widow -- his wife has been in a coma for almost a year following a StaircaseTumble -- but the nurse Tracy Evans sets out to seduce him anyway. When Mr Deal is around, she plays up what a caring and attentive nurse she is for Mrs Deal, even though she's lazy and careless when no one is watching.

* ForgetsToEat: Patrick's mother reminds him to eat during their phone calls. Patrick says he won't forget, even though he sometimes does.

* InVinoVeritas: When Patrick questions his drunk classmate Scott about some evidence that had gone missing, Scott angrily says that he didn't take anything. Patrick believes him because in his experience drunk people tell the truth, like when his mother told him that she'd almost killed herself because of him.

* PutOffTheirFood: While Patrick eats Christmas dinner with his mother, he tells her all the gross details of dissecting cadaver, like the partially-digested food found in some stomachs. The conversation reminds her that the chicken on the table is another dead body and makes eating it seem disgusting. When Patrick describes the smell from a cadaver's bowels, his mother slaps the table and yells, 'Oh for God's sake, Patrick! We're ''eating''!'

* SleepyDepressive: After the death of Patrick's father, his mother spent weeks doing almost nothing but sleeping. Patrick made himself sandwiches and got lifts to school with his OnlyFriend Weird Nick. Patrick and his mother dislike each other, so he found her absence calming.

* FingerTwitchingRevival: Tracy Evans, a nurse in Sam's coma ward, is annoyed by this trope because comatose people make random movements and noises all the time, and every time a patient twitches their loved ones think they're about to recover.

** Meg is reading to Mrs Deal and wonders if her finger twitches might be an attempt to communicate. She tells her to tap her finger once for yes and twice for no. Mrs Deal taps eight times. Meg concludes that she doesn't understand anything after all.

* SwitchingPOV: The book switches between Sam, who narrates in the first person, and Tracy and Patrick, who narrate in the third.

Samuel Galen is badly injured in a car crash. A long time later, he wakes up in a coma ward just on time to witness another patient's murder at the hands of a doctor. But Samuel can barely move his eyes voluntarily, much less report what he saw. To make matters worse, a woman he doesn't recognise keeps visiting and calling herself his wife.

* FingerTwitchingRevival: Tracy Evans, a nurse in Samuel's coma ward, is annoyed by this trope because comatose people make random movements and noises all the time, and every time a patient twitches their loved ones think they're about to recover.

** Samuel is suffering from pneumonia and chest pain. A doctor tells him to blink twice if it hurts. He blinks many times.

* SwitchingPOV: The book switches between Samuel, who narrates in the first person, and Tracy and Patrick, who narrate in the third.
* TearsOfJoy: Samuel eventually recovers enough for nurses to spoon small amounts of orange juice into his mouth. It tastes so good that he cries. His joy is short-lived -- Tracy carelessly feeds him too quickly and the juice goes down his airway, causing pneumonia.

* PutOffTheirFood: While Patrick eats Christmas dinner with his mother, he tells her all the gross details of dissecting cadaver, like the partially-digested food found in some stomachs. When Patrick describes the smell from a cadaver's bowels, his mother slaps the table and yells, 'Oh for God's sake, Patrick! We're ''eating''!'

Samuel Galen is badly injured in a car crash. A long time later, he wakes up in a coma ward just on time to witness another patient's murder at the hands of a doctor. But Samuel can barely move his eyes voluntarily, much less report what he saw. To make matters worse, he's the victim of MistakenIdentity, and a woman he doesn't recognise keeps visiting and calling herself his wife.

Patrick Fort is an eighteen-year-old medical student with Asperger's. He and several other students are tasked with dissecting a cadaver to determine its cause of death. Patrick becomes increasingly convinced that the official cause of death is wrong and the man was murdered.