In her poignant memoir, Michele Harper shares what it has been like being a Black woman in a predominantly male and white career as an emergency room physician. Recently divorced, Harper started her first job in New York City where she learned how to heal her own wounds from childhood abuse through examples from her patients

In The Beauty in Breaking, each of Harper's anecdotes hits on specific systemic issues in healthcare today: racial profiling, sexism, sexual abuse in the military, mental health treatment, etc. However, as a whole, the memoir fell a bit flat, diving into Harper's childhood but just skimming her adult life with odd tangents about meditation and yoga.