Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

5 reviews

znvisser's review against another edition

informative sad slow-paced

4.75

 This has been on my to-read for a while and oof, I am impressed. This is such an amazing work of investigative journalism, especially considering how close to all events this has been written. Shilts manages to incorporate many causes, perspectives and subcultures that collided into this big mess of handling this horrible epidemic: politics, capitalism, academia and its publishing, healthcare and its funding, (fear of) homophobia, media functioning… the unfolding of this epidemic is such a heartbreaking piece of history and this story outlines in much detail how it all went so terribly wrong, including many key characters and organizations. Even with the subject matter aside however, it isn’t an easy read: it’s long and slow paced due to the many events covered, and during the audio I sometimes had trouble keeping all organisations and individuals apart; but it’s a journey that provides many impactful insights nonetheless. Every organisation, sector and government  should keep learning their lessons from this so nothing like this can ever happen again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Classism, Death, and Homophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, and Drug use

Minor: Pregnancy, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

kaiciemesser's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness

Moderate: Death

usually_sleep_deprived's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Addiction, Gaslighting, Chronic illness, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Medical content, Terminal illness, Torture, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Police brutality, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Classism, Cursing, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Outing, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

sakisreads's review against another edition

challenging dark sad slow-paced

3.0

A hard hitting, harrowing read. This is probably the book that took me the longest to read this year, as there are so many names and perspectives to contend with. It was astonishing that the administration and media didn’t cover the AIDS epidemic from the get go, and Shilts doesn’t hold back on his criticism of that. However, his portrayal of Gaetan Dugas (dubbed ‘Patient Zero’) felt aggressive and it felt unfair that Dugas could not say anything back, as he passed away in 1984.
Overall, this was a good but quite dated look into the AIDS epidemic. I think I would like to find a more sensitive perspective into this topic 😳

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Terminal illness

fawns's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

After watching Pose on Netflix I picked up And The Band Played On to learn more about the AIDS crisis. I was too young to know what was going on when it first started and have continued to know very little. A huge personal oversight. 
This book was an excellent read. It is comprehensive and obviously meticulously researched when it comes to the epidemiology and financial aspects of AIDS. I had no idea of the parallels that could be drawn between the way AIDS was handled by the US and Reagan and the way Covid was handled by Trump. Handled in that it was allowed to run rampant with little intervention to protect people by the federal government. 
My criticism is that the author focused very little of his writing on how AIDS affected communities of color in the '80s, focusing instead on the white community. 
It also would have been instructive to be able to learn more about the front-line activists that did the vast majority of the work to make changes in policy and safety.
Overall, if willing to make the time investment (it's a little over 600 pages), this is a well-done public health history book to read and learn from.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Medical content, and Homophobia