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How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France
teokajlibroj's review against another edition
5.0
This is an incredible book. Not only for the fantastic coverage of the issue or how the focus is on the victims, but also because the author lived through the plague and so witnessed many of the events first hand and knew many of the activists. It's an emotional book and I felt waves of not only pity and sorrow but also anger about the number of people who died young and how slow the effort to help them was.
It's not a pleasant read, but I highly recommend it.
It's not a pleasant read, but I highly recommend it.
ammmiiiii's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
2.75
A poignant journey through the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS movement in America.
Slightly too detailed for my liking at times.
Slightly too detailed for my liking at times.
yikesbmg's review against another edition
5.0
This is hands down one of the best books I have ever read ever. Like ever ever ever ever. David France is an incredible writer and deeply feeling and humane journalist. His capacity for empathy, love, and justified anger really put this book on another level. I picked up this book because my uncle was one of the 50,000 people to die from AIDS in 1994 and no one - not my family, not my schools, not political movements I am apart of - seems to talk about that time or this public health crisis.
For readers like me who are trying to learn more about the AIDS crisis, here's the deal: this book is a New York-centric book that focuses on primarily cis white gay men with AIDS from the the early 1980s until 1985 that were involved in ACT UP. None of that is meant to discredit it: it is a phenomenal, phenomenal book that I will recommend for the rest of my life. If you are looking for a book on how AIDS spread or affected women or people of color, or how the crisis affected San Francisco or other cities, this is not it. Let me know if you find those books.
I have never read a book with so much science that (1) was easy to understand, (2) reinforced concepts through repetition without hitting you over the head with it, and (3) that captured the gravity of science and research's failure and breakthroughs quite like this book did. I really commend the author for his ability to write compellingly about relationships between individual people, between and within organizations, and organized groups and their governments. This book deals with a lot of death but the author treats the people in this story with so much care which makes stats like the fact that 42,000 people died from AIDS in 1993 easier to grasp. By treating individual lives and deaths of friends, lovers and activists with so much care, the big statistics feel like the bombshells that they are.
This was a page-turner, a tear jerker (actually, I sobbed multiple times), and a tome on how people, even those with good intentions, are flawed and limited but also somehow capable of changing the world. The activists that emerged from this crisis were not always movement people! They were in the arts, in finance, college drop outs! They didn't always get along! Dr. Fauci was actually the villain for most of this story! Scientists didn't get a long! Big Pharma sucked tremendously and tried to exploit sick people, but Big Pharma also was integral to solving this crisis! (On a separate note: Michael Callen is an American hero. I was so, so deeply moved by everything he did from basically inventing safe sex with Richard Berkowitz to producing expensive pharmaceuticals via an "underground" market that served thousands of People with AIDS, all when the one thing he really wanted to do was make an album. Talk about someone who did the work, even if he sometimes did it reluctantly.)
In an ironic way, this book's deep dive into the crazy amounts of homophobia in the 20th century actually made me hopeful because it reminded me that things have changed while also making me acutely aware that those changes are not to be taken for granted. There's so much more I could say but honestly if you are considering reading this book just drop what you are doing, buckle up, and get to it.
For readers like me who are trying to learn more about the AIDS crisis, here's the deal: this book is a New York-centric book that focuses on primarily cis white gay men with AIDS from the the early 1980s until 1985 that were involved in ACT UP. None of that is meant to discredit it: it is a phenomenal, phenomenal book that I will recommend for the rest of my life. If you are looking for a book on how AIDS spread or affected women or people of color, or how the crisis affected San Francisco or other cities, this is not it. Let me know if you find those books.
I have never read a book with so much science that (1) was easy to understand, (2) reinforced concepts through repetition without hitting you over the head with it, and (3) that captured the gravity of science and research's failure and breakthroughs quite like this book did. I really commend the author for his ability to write compellingly about relationships between individual people, between and within organizations, and organized groups and their governments. This book deals with a lot of death but the author treats the people in this story with so much care which makes stats like the fact that 42,000 people died from AIDS in 1993 easier to grasp. By treating individual lives and deaths of friends, lovers and activists with so much care, the big statistics feel like the bombshells that they are.
This was a page-turner, a tear jerker (actually, I sobbed multiple times), and a tome on how people, even those with good intentions, are flawed and limited but also somehow capable of changing the world. The activists that emerged from this crisis were not always movement people! They were in the arts, in finance, college drop outs! They didn't always get along! Dr. Fauci was actually the villain for most of this story! Scientists didn't get a long! Big Pharma sucked tremendously and tried to exploit sick people, but Big Pharma also was integral to solving this crisis! (On a separate note: Michael Callen is an American hero. I was so, so deeply moved by everything he did from basically inventing safe sex with Richard Berkowitz to producing expensive pharmaceuticals via an "underground" market that served thousands of People with AIDS, all when the one thing he really wanted to do was make an album. Talk about someone who did the work, even if he sometimes did it reluctantly.)
In an ironic way, this book's deep dive into the crazy amounts of homophobia in the 20th century actually made me hopeful because it reminded me that things have changed while also making me acutely aware that those changes are not to be taken for granted. There's so much more I could say but honestly if you are considering reading this book just drop what you are doing, buckle up, and get to it.
catymart83's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
11corvus11's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent and important telling of a catastrophic history. Longer review to come, but in short, this was a very long book that never became boring for a second. I cried as well as cheered multiple times and would love to read more gay and queer history from this author.
anishak4's review against another edition
5.0
This one was long - but absolutely excellent. I’m amazed at how little of this I knew, and how much it pertains to the current state of affairs.
cococampbell's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75