3.58 stars ✨

Reading this made me think back to a social media post that criticized people for pressuring younger generations to only pursue high-paying jobs. Our society NEEDS social workers, librarians, teachers, etc. Their work is invaluable, and this book only scratches the surface of these efforts.

Kyker’s memoir is a vulnerable self-reflection on experiencing the ripple effect of someone else’s worst-case scenario—day in and day out. This book captures the toll that such a routine can take on a person whose job requires them to endure trauma while providing for strangers. It is honest storytelling.

That said, the writing itself fell short for me. The structure and timeline were a little wonky. There’s a lot of jumping back and forth between time periods, which makes it easier for repetition to slip into these moments. I tried telling myself to read it like a collection of short essays—not something I gravitate toward, but it would help me follow the story a little more easily; however, this still felt too choppy for that format.

Also, I like finding the title in books, but there was no reason to drop “worst-case scenario” twenty-three times!

The pacing was sort of exhausting, though that could also be because there were a lot of discussions surrounding philosophy and not enough seamless tie-ins to their relevance to the story. A lot of these philosophical parts had me asking, “ok, and?” It mostly came off as rambling. Sometimes it felt like I was reading a self-help book or something you read during an intro course to help you decide if you want to pursue a major in that field.

Overall, this was an insightful text on the healthcare and social work industries, and how we each come face to face with our humanity. Kyker’s story shines a light on the professionals learning about their own healing processes behind the scenes of everyday chaos.

Thank you very much NetGalley and Girl Friday Productions for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this memoir especially as someone who is interested in working in the ER however I felt that it would have benefitted from a more cohesive and joint story to keep the reader engaged instead of flitting between tales which would have held more importance together than on their own!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is an interesting look at the more human side of ERs as opposed to the gritty medical side. Patient advocates are priceless and the ER is a perfect place to be able to give that assistance.
I did get a little bored with the philosophy parts but I did enjoy the psychology parts.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Kathryn Kyker’s Surprised by Nothing: Surviving the ER World of Worst-Case Scenarios is not your typical memoir—it’s a raw, clear-eyed meditation on what it means to bear witness to the worst days of other people’s lives, day after day, and still find a way back to your own humanity.

Kyker, a former ER social worker who once fainted at the sight of blood, chronicles her 30-year journey through the emotional minefield of emergency medicine. But this isn’t a book about heroism or adrenaline. It’s about the quiet, corrosive toll of hypervigilance, the numbing effect of repeated trauma, and the slow unraveling of one’s inner life in the name of professional duty.

What makes this memoir stand out is Kyker’s refusal to sensationalize. Her prose is unflinching but never gratuitous, laced with dry humor and a poet’s sensitivity to the absurd. She doesn’t just recount cases—she interrogates the emotional architecture of survival: how we compartmentalize, how we disconnect, and how we eventually must reckon with what we’ve buried.

The book’s title is a brilliant paradox. In a world where worst-case scenarios are the norm, Kyker finds herself “surprised by nothing”—and yet, in her quest to reclaim joy, curiosity, and connection, she becomes surprised by everything. The result is a memoir that’s as much about healing as it is about endurance.

Surprised by Nothing is a vital read for anyone who’s ever worked in crisis care, loved someone who has, or simply wondered how we keep going when the world keeps breaking. It’s not just a story of survival—it’s a quiet, powerful argument for reclaiming the parts of ourselves we lose in the process.