Reviews tagging 'Death'

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

17 reviews

lizziaha's review against another edition

I’m planning to come back to this at some point; I just lost motivation to finish. It’s a lot of information, and because it’s history and I know the general shape of the story, there’s a kind of dread rising through the entire experience of reading. I wish there was an audiobook so I could just power through! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexual content

ellagrady's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Grief

abelh's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

b3thanamy's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Terminal illness

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, Death, Homophobia, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Drug use, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

kaiciemesser's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness

Moderate: Death

v_neptune's review against another edition

got what i needed for the assignment and bowed out. good book though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Addiction, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual content

paulwesterberg's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

holy fucking shit this book has changed me straight down to my molecular makeup. i wish i could say more but truly i cannot express it in words. i’m gonna be thinking about this book for the rest of my life. my god

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

friends2lovers's review against another edition

challenging informative sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Minor: Child death and Suicidal thoughts

pmhandley's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

Reading this book in the time of COVID is unsurprisingly prescient. So much rings familiar. The unpreparedness, the underreported case counts, the general selfishness where people refuse to change their behavior while the government bungles messaging on public health. This is also one of the few books I've read of this length that actually needed to be this long. It does a great job of portraying its subjects as complicated humans and as people largely doing the best they could without the clarity that comes with hindsight. As bad as I already thought the Reagan administration was around AIDS, somehow, it was even worse. While frustrating to watch people push back on testing and and closing the bathhouses, it's easy to see why an administration so steeped in the Christian right and homophobia was not to be trusted and why even effective public health measures would be suspect. It's sad to think how many lives could have been saved if rampant homophobia had not existed at the time, or stigma around intravenous drug users and sex work. Things like closing bathhouses and starting HIV testing campaigns would have been less controversial. I was also unaware how much stupid scientific infighting had existed and how much it held up research. People were dying and transfusion AIDS was being dismissed as a possibility while countries fought over whose scientists got to claim discovery and the French scientists ultimately got shorted. Admittedly I did cringe a little at some of the dated language. The general tone in which "Africa" is spoken about is ignorant sounding. "Prostitute" is used widely since "sex worker" was obviously not in wide usage in 1987. Generally, the book is is very Western-centered, which makes sense given the time and what information was available.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Terminal illness

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Drug use, Hate crime, Medical content, and Outing