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sunshinemilk's review against another edition
2.0
What if we held hands in the hot lab:)
This book was terrifying and heartbreaking and at times felt incredibly exploitive. It sometimes read like a white missionary memoir without the proselytizing and if you do a quick google search on the doctors and their billion dollar organization, you’ll find out exactly why.
I hope every person that comes across missionaries invading their communities throws rocks at them just like the villagers did in this book.
Fuck Samaritan’s Purse and absolutely FUCK Franklin Graham.
This book was terrifying and heartbreaking and at times felt incredibly exploitive. It sometimes read like a white missionary memoir without the proselytizing and if you do a quick google search on the doctors and their billion dollar organization, you’ll find out exactly why.
I hope every person that comes across missionaries invading their communities throws rocks at them just like the villagers did in this book.
Fuck Samaritan’s Purse and absolutely FUCK Franklin Graham.
amandajane8205's review against another edition
4.0
This book was great. Informative about what Ebola is and how it spread. It was interesting to see all of the transferring of the virus.
My only thing was that it was a long book. It took a while to finish the book. It almost could have been two books. But other than that, it was a great book!
My only thing was that it was a long book. It took a while to finish the book. It almost could have been two books. But other than that, it was a great book!
eamily's review against another edition
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Abortion, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Death, Pregnancy, Blood, Body horror, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Grief, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence
Moderate: Drug use and Classism
Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, and Cancer
alisonburnis's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
3.5
Another book about Ebola! This is Preston’s exploration of the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa (the Makona Triangle, where Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia meet). It’s not as good as The Hot Zone, about the 1989 Reston Ebola outbreak - but it’s a lot scarier, and a lot more pertinent. It was also published in 2019, and there’s a section at the end on how we should prepare for an outbreak of a novel virus and what that might look like: schools closed, hospitals overrun, people avoiding stores, orders to stay home…
Anyway, the narrative here took a little while to get the tension going, which felt odd, but after a mid-book flashback to the 1976 emergence of Ebola, it picked up. The stories told were tragic and terrifying, and also many many lessons wait in this book. I feel overwhelmingly sad when I think about how we haven’t learned a thing. But it was really helpful to read. People kept referring to the Ebola scare at work, and I had no context or memory of it, blessedly.
Anyway, the narrative here took a little while to get the tension going, which felt odd, but after a mid-book flashback to the 1976 emergence of Ebola, it picked up. The stories told were tragic and terrifying, and also many many lessons wait in this book. I feel overwhelmingly sad when I think about how we haven’t learned a thing. But it was really helpful to read. People kept referring to the Ebola scare at work, and I had no context or memory of it, blessedly.
deebert's review against another edition
4.0
Really good read. It was published before COVID so it was interesting hearing the author discuss the possibilities for future pandemics, knowing that it all came true.
ksilvagnoli's review against another edition
5.0
While I enjoyed Preston’s the Hot Zone, it felt different than the stories of Ebola I had been reading about or seeing in articles. (Mind you, the Hot Zone was published 24 years ago.)
This book, in my opinion, feels more true to form. It is a hard read, but necessary. It weaves a much more complex narrative of events, but feels more genuine to the crisis that happened (and is still happening in places like the DRC). The way Preston depicts those working in the Kenema Government Hospital, and countless others, is inspirational. Their efforts and bravery should be recorded and recounted. That they shared so much with Preston, and consequently the reader, is a gift.
This book, in my opinion, feels more true to form. It is a hard read, but necessary. It weaves a much more complex narrative of events, but feels more genuine to the crisis that happened (and is still happening in places like the DRC). The way Preston depicts those working in the Kenema Government Hospital, and countless others, is inspirational. Their efforts and bravery should be recorded and recounted. That they shared so much with Preston, and consequently the reader, is a gift.