The Other Pandemic: An AIDS Memoir by Lynn Curlee

The Other Pandemic: An AIDS Memoir was written by Lynn Curlee about what it was like living through the AIDS crisis in NYC and California as a gay man. It was heartbreaking reading what the author had been through and everyone he has lost, it must have been incredibly difficult for him to have survived the 1980's. Curlee writes about the emotions that he felt while also giving a lot of facts about AIDS and the protests that happened due to the US government's negligence.

It's horrifying reading about how little help these men got and how ignorant the majority of the country was, including the Reagan administration. Over 100,000 people died of AIDS throughout the 1980's and the country turned a blind eye due to homophobia, misinformation, and ignorance. Ronald Reagan himself did not publicly acknowledge the AIDS crisis until 1985 when his friend and fellow actor Rock Hudson died of the disease; by the end of 1985, approximately 13,000 people had died of AIDS. 

There's been a lot of progress for the LGBTQ+ community since the 1980's and it's amazing to see how far science has come in helping those at risk for HIV. I definitely recommend reading this, especially since it's an easy read as it's targeted towards young adults, and would personally rate this a 4/5.

Quote

• Page 134

• The AIDS horror was perhaps the central trauma of my life, but I survived and had the privilege of growing old. Hundreds of thousands of others in the United States did not.