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A review by maddypat
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.0
The Hot Zone pulled me in basically immediately. I am probably in the minority with this, but I actually didn't know anything about Ebola other than it is very dangerous. Now I know in detail what it does and how it does it, and have a great respect for it to boot.
Preston does a great job of setting up the origin story of the virus, and the book really reads more like a fiction thriller as opposed to non-fiction -- and I mean this very much as a compliment! I plowed through the first 3/4ths of the book very quickly. I will say that after that the book kind of fell off for me. It didn't get bad, but the mystery/tension had kind of dissipated and then it began to be less exciting but still interesting. I think most of that comes from the fact that I kind of "spoiled" the ending of the monkey house debacle by looking up Ebola on wikipedia (if you could say learning about historical events is considered soiling).
All in all though it was a great read and I really enjoyed it!
Preston does a great job of setting up the origin story of the virus, and the book really reads more like a fiction thriller as opposed to non-fiction -- and I mean this very much as a compliment! I plowed through the first 3/4ths of the book very quickly. I will say that after that the book kind of fell off for me. It didn't get bad, but the mystery/tension had kind of dissipated and then it began to be less exciting but still interesting. I think most of that comes from the fact that I kind of "spoiled" the ending of the monkey house debacle by looking up Ebola on wikipedia (if you could say learning about historical events is considered soiling).
All in all though it was a great read and I really enjoyed it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
There is a SUBSTANTIAL amount of animal death in this book, particularly monkeys. Monkeys getting violently sick, monkeys used in lab testing, monkeys getting caught and sold, monkeys getting hunted and butchered, and monkeys getting euthanized . I will say though that it is generally dealt with empathetically -- there is never joy in this. Something about that makes it more manageable to read about, and even as someone who is extremely sensitive to animal cruelty in any media, I was able to get through it without too much discomfort. Still, proceed with caution if you find reading this kind of content challenging.