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Fight AIDS!: How Activism, Art, and Protest Changed the Course of a Deadly Epidemic and Reshaped a Nation
Acclaimed author Michael G. Long tells the story of the devastating AIDS crisis and the trailblazing activists who fought for dignity, compassion, and treatment.
Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!
This was the slogan for ACT UP—or AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power—an activist organization that emerged in the 1980s during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The group was loud, direct, and confrontational as it fought for access to treatment, compassionate care, and recognition for everyone with HIV and AIDS.
Tracing the history of the LGBTQ+ community from the Stonewall Riots and “gay liberation” movements to the groundbreaking protests of the 1980s and 1990s, Fight AIDS! is a gripping narrative of the AIDS epidemic for young readers, told through the lens of the activism it fostered. Focusing on the people most directly affected by the crisis and on the individuals who fought for justice, it is an intimate and humane account of one of the most devastating eras in United States history and an electrifying celebration of the power ordinary citizens have to enact meaningful change.
Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!
This was the slogan for ACT UP—or AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power—an activist organization that emerged in the 1980s during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The group was loud, direct, and confrontational as it fought for access to treatment, compassionate care, and recognition for everyone with HIV and AIDS.
Tracing the history of the LGBTQ+ community from the Stonewall Riots and “gay liberation” movements to the groundbreaking protests of the 1980s and 1990s, Fight AIDS! is a gripping narrative of the AIDS epidemic for young readers, told through the lens of the activism it fostered. Focusing on the people most directly affected by the crisis and on the individuals who fought for justice, it is an intimate and humane account of one of the most devastating eras in United States history and an electrifying celebration of the power ordinary citizens have to enact meaningful change.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published June 3, 2025
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March 27, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!
What a thoroughly researched and compelling book. It's heartbreaking and anger inducing subject matter but it's conveyed in such an accessible and relatable way. It felt personal and I felt very close to the people in it as a reader, not that I could always tell who everyone was and whether this person had come up before because there were a lot of people involved, but the actual quotes and descriptions from those who were there coupled with the photos and art built this amazing, deep portrait.
A couple of years back I read Ruth Coker Burks' book about her work and life during the HIV/AIDS epidemic and I came away feeling the same way, though this book was more based in exploring the historic moment and bigger political movements whereas 'All the Young Men' was more focussed on the small and intimate (not to say that any of those people or what they went through is "small", but rather I suppose the daily lives of these people more so than the larger organisations and protests).
I feel so well informed in a different way than before, the politics and history in this were so accessibly written and, though I thought I knew a lot already, there was so much I didn't!
I've written before, probably in my review for 'All the Young Men', about the impact Larry Kramer's 'A Normal Heart' had on me as a teenager and that has continued for the last decade and a half. It blew me away the first time I saw it performed and every night I stayed late where I was volunteering at the time just to experience it again - shout out to Buddies in Bad Times Queer theatre in Toronto because the art I saw there at 18 years old changed my life. I think about it all the time, and though I've seen it performed once since, it was online during lockdown, and read the play countless times, I would be terrified to see it again and have it not match that world-shaking feeling of the first time. Though I say this, I actually would jump at the chance to get to, and hope I can.
But anyway, that was where my education started properly, with that play and then researching the true story afterwards, learning about ACTUP and artists like Keith Haring from there. But there was so much I didn't know to contextualise that play further, so much of a fight I should know about, but of course, as Long speaks on at the end, the taboo is still there, the shame is still there, and the misinformation is still there, so right now we are never going to be as educated as we should be.
There were photos in here that I will never forget (for some reason the ribbon cutting one just won't leave my mind) and there are words from the mouths of people who fought and fought and saved those who came after them that I will never forget. It was amazing to hear the story of how the AIDS Quilt came to be and all the different organisations that existed. I really came to realise I didn't know much at all about the fight for medication, I knew the "shocking" bits from protests, the "If I die of aids, forget burial, just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A." (though didn't realise they actually did/tried to do that), of die-ins and disruptions, but I didn't know about the ashes, of Ward 5B, of Ryan White. I didn't know the extent of the gruelling fight to get medication that ended up doing little at all, and then the way the breakthroughs came to be, just like that, all of a sudden, and the way they worked !! the descriptions of how people who were moving to hospice were suddenly so active again was unbelievable and I can't even begin to imagine how that felt at the time.
It was interesting to consider, as the dates in the book progressed and got closer to the year I was born, just how close this all is to us now still. I've spent a lot of my life watching people explain what it means to be undetectable and PrEP has been something I've known about at least a decade now, but it's all still so new! I think I felt much more detached from it than I should, which in some ways is a good thing, we've made progress in such a way that it's not impacting everyone's life in the way it once did, but also, we should all know more and should be educated further. I've known people who are diagnosed and so scarily uneducated about it and I've known people the opposite, it's still carrying a lot of the struggle in terms of education and reaching the most marginalised as it once did. How recently the medication that "works" was created and distributed was is sobering.
Learning more about the women at the time was something I was pleased to see, because a lot of the time, though there is sometimes a iconic lesbian or two who get commemorated for doing brilliant things to help, it is mainly focussed on the care and activism they did to assist mostly gay men. I had no idea about the extent of the impact medically on women. But then again, isn't this always the way with medicine. The facts laid out like that are really something though; the statistics, the politicians doing nothing even after they'd put that CARE act into place, as the number of women dying just rose and rose. We don't hear very much about the women who fought and died to this too.
The width of history across America conveyed in this was really great, I knew some of the history in San Francisco but a lot out there focusses heavily on New York and ACTUP there especially (not to say that's wrong to do!), But hearing about the first AIDS march from Castro to Civic Centre and realising I've walked that same route, as I'm sure countless people have, with that same faction of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (will always be grateful for the time I got to spend with the wonderful Sister Roma in my short year there!), was special to me. We didn't walk for the same thing, but in similar sombre quiet for the people who were killed at Pulse in 2016. And I listened to people shout and cry on those very same steps as they did back then. I repeat, it's all so close and all so connected.
In Harry Nicholas's A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar, he speaks of gaps in queer people's past and in our futures because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, how because of this devastating loss we are only really just beginning to see what futures look like for LGBTQ+ people, to grow old together, to exist publicly together, because those that should have been doing that already never got the chance to, you really fully get the sense of that in this book.
This was beautifully written and taught me so much, I feel more connected to that time and even more empathetic to everything they went through, fought for, and are still fighting for. Decades of fighting. The statistics at the end are shocking and I hope so much we can continue to make progress for people affected in all walks of life. I feel such admiration and gratitude for those that came before me and hope we can continue to work in ways that do right by them.
"We send this message to America: We are the lesbians and gay men of San Francisco, and although we are again surrounded by uncertainty and despair, we are survivors, we shall survive again, and we shall be the strongest and most gentle people on Earth." - Cleve Jones, Nov 27th 1985.
What a thoroughly researched and compelling book. It's heartbreaking and anger inducing subject matter but it's conveyed in such an accessible and relatable way. It felt personal and I felt very close to the people in it as a reader, not that I could always tell who everyone was and whether this person had come up before because there were a lot of people involved, but the actual quotes and descriptions from those who were there coupled with the photos and art built this amazing, deep portrait.
A couple of years back I read Ruth Coker Burks' book about her work and life during the HIV/AIDS epidemic and I came away feeling the same way, though this book was more based in exploring the historic moment and bigger political movements whereas 'All the Young Men' was more focussed on the small and intimate (not to say that any of those people or what they went through is "small", but rather I suppose the daily lives of these people more so than the larger organisations and protests).
I feel so well informed in a different way than before, the politics and history in this were so accessibly written and, though I thought I knew a lot already, there was so much I didn't!
I've written before, probably in my review for 'All the Young Men', about the impact Larry Kramer's 'A Normal Heart' had on me as a teenager and that has continued for the last decade and a half. It blew me away the first time I saw it performed and every night I stayed late where I was volunteering at the time just to experience it again - shout out to Buddies in Bad Times Queer theatre in Toronto because the art I saw there at 18 years old changed my life. I think about it all the time, and though I've seen it performed once since, it was online during lockdown, and read the play countless times, I would be terrified to see it again and have it not match that world-shaking feeling of the first time. Though I say this, I actually would jump at the chance to get to, and hope I can.
But anyway, that was where my education started properly, with that play and then researching the true story afterwards, learning about ACTUP and artists like Keith Haring from there. But there was so much I didn't know to contextualise that play further, so much of a fight I should know about, but of course, as Long speaks on at the end, the taboo is still there, the shame is still there, and the misinformation is still there, so right now we are never going to be as educated as we should be.
There were photos in here that I will never forget (for some reason the ribbon cutting one just won't leave my mind) and there are words from the mouths of people who fought and fought and saved those who came after them that I will never forget. It was amazing to hear the story of how the AIDS Quilt came to be and all the different organisations that existed. I really came to realise I didn't know much at all about the fight for medication, I knew the "shocking" bits from protests, the "If I die of aids, forget burial, just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A." (though didn't realise they actually did/tried to do that), of die-ins and disruptions, but I didn't know about the ashes, of Ward 5B, of Ryan White. I didn't know the extent of the gruelling fight to get medication that ended up doing little at all, and then the way the breakthroughs came to be, just like that, all of a sudden, and the way they worked !! the descriptions of how people who were moving to hospice were suddenly so active again was unbelievable and I can't even begin to imagine how that felt at the time.
It was interesting to consider, as the dates in the book progressed and got closer to the year I was born, just how close this all is to us now still. I've spent a lot of my life watching people explain what it means to be undetectable and PrEP has been something I've known about at least a decade now, but it's all still so new! I think I felt much more detached from it than I should, which in some ways is a good thing, we've made progress in such a way that it's not impacting everyone's life in the way it once did, but also, we should all know more and should be educated further. I've known people who are diagnosed and so scarily uneducated about it and I've known people the opposite, it's still carrying a lot of the struggle in terms of education and reaching the most marginalised as it once did. How recently the medication that "works" was created and distributed was is sobering.
Learning more about the women at the time was something I was pleased to see, because a lot of the time, though there is sometimes a iconic lesbian or two who get commemorated for doing brilliant things to help, it is mainly focussed on the care and activism they did to assist mostly gay men. I had no idea about the extent of the impact medically on women. But then again, isn't this always the way with medicine. The facts laid out like that are really something though; the statistics, the politicians doing nothing even after they'd put that CARE act into place, as the number of women dying just rose and rose. We don't hear very much about the women who fought and died to this too.
The width of history across America conveyed in this was really great, I knew some of the history in San Francisco but a lot out there focusses heavily on New York and ACTUP there especially (not to say that's wrong to do!), But hearing about the first AIDS march from Castro to Civic Centre and realising I've walked that same route, as I'm sure countless people have, with that same faction of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (will always be grateful for the time I got to spend with the wonderful Sister Roma in my short year there!), was special to me. We didn't walk for the same thing, but in similar sombre quiet for the people who were killed at Pulse in 2016. And I listened to people shout and cry on those very same steps as they did back then. I repeat, it's all so close and all so connected.
In Harry Nicholas's A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar, he speaks of gaps in queer people's past and in our futures because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, how because of this devastating loss we are only really just beginning to see what futures look like for LGBTQ+ people, to grow old together, to exist publicly together, because those that should have been doing that already never got the chance to, you really fully get the sense of that in this book.
This was beautifully written and taught me so much, I feel more connected to that time and even more empathetic to everything they went through, fought for, and are still fighting for. Decades of fighting. The statistics at the end are shocking and I hope so much we can continue to make progress for people affected in all walks of life. I feel such admiration and gratitude for those that came before me and hope we can continue to work in ways that do right by them.
"We send this message to America: We are the lesbians and gay men of San Francisco, and although we are again surrounded by uncertainty and despair, we are survivors, we shall survive again, and we shall be the strongest and most gentle people on Earth." - Cleve Jones, Nov 27th 1985.
July 31, 2025
This is a fantastic resource about the history of the AIDS epidemic and action. I really like that this book looks at a lot of different facets of AIDS activism (mutual aid, blood donation, political funerals, AIDS quilt, direct action, star power, etc.). It's important to me as a former civics teacher to show that everyone has something they can contribute to making change in society, and this book shows that it took a combination to make the powers that be pay attention. While I would say that many of the activists featured tend to be white gay men, that is definitely not the entire scope of the book. For a book about such a sad time, I left the book feeling energized and empowered.
This is not listed as YA at my library, but I do think it is a great resource for teenagers learning about AIDS, gay history, and activism. It is impossible to talk about AIDS without talking about sex in some capacity, but this book is certainly not explicit and is going to be appropriate for the majority of teenagers in an educational setting. I found this book to be very ADHD friendly (short chapters broken up into chunks, callbacks to previous information, foreshadowing what is coming next, etc.). It's also a great resource for people who really don't know much about the AIDS epidemic or gay culture during the 70s-90s-- the author explains terms, cultural touchstones, abbreviations, and acronyms that may be unfamiliar to some readers.
This is not listed as YA at my library, but I do think it is a great resource for teenagers learning about AIDS, gay history, and activism. It is impossible to talk about AIDS without talking about sex in some capacity, but this book is certainly not explicit and is going to be appropriate for the majority of teenagers in an educational setting. I found this book to be very ADHD friendly (short chapters broken up into chunks, callbacks to previous information, foreshadowing what is coming next, etc.). It's also a great resource for people who really don't know much about the AIDS epidemic or gay culture during the 70s-90s-- the author explains terms, cultural touchstones, abbreviations, and acronyms that may be unfamiliar to some readers.
June 29, 2025
An absolutely heartbreaking, rage-inducing time. I cry for the people who died, the people who lost loved ones, and the people still afflicted by illness and death.
Before reading this, my knowledge of the AIDs crisis was limited and as a queer person, that didn’t sit right with me. I appreciated how this book presented material in short chapters and I did like seeing the art/activist posters. However, for a book claiming to be mainly about the art activism, there was shockingly little of it. They showed some incredible pieces but I would have liked to see more of them. It also wasn’t mentioned much in the book. That left me confused and thus I took a star off.
Excellent book if you’re looking be more informed on queer history.
Before reading this, my knowledge of the AIDs crisis was limited and as a queer person, that didn’t sit right with me. I appreciated how this book presented material in short chapters and I did like seeing the art/activist posters. However, for a book claiming to be mainly about the art activism, there was shockingly little of it. They showed some incredible pieces but I would have liked to see more of them. It also wasn’t mentioned much in the book. That left me confused and thus I took a star off.
Excellent book if you’re looking be more informed on queer history.
January 7, 2026
Fight AIDS: How Activism, Art and Protest Changed the Course of a Deadly Epidemic and Reshaped a Nation, by Michael G. Long, is an excellent review of the early years of AIDS. He starts each segment with people and dives into the full history. It's engaging and flows easily chapter to chapter, a fast read that is comprehensive. It was published by Norton Young Readers and it seems they asked him to write the book because of his journalist background. Next to David France's book, also a journalist, this book is another great book that has an easier access, shorter and a quick read.
The book is also filled with art: posters, fliers, photographs, newspaper headlines, and sections and chapters are divided with a series of fists that spell out "Fight AIDS." This book is brilliant, beautiful, and educational. It just came out in 2025, after the recent election or coup of a repressive regime in the US. First thing done was to destroy USAID and cut off funding that saved lives. So we need to know and understand what our government has a history of and how we could regress if we don't keep fighting for what we've gained through activism. Read this book!
Some notes from the book about women with AIDS:
Katrina Haslip at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in NY, cofounded the prison’s AIDS Counseling and Education Program. Released in September 1990, she helped formerly incarcerated HIV-positive women readapt to society. She referred women to lawyer Theresa McGovern, an advocate for poor people in NYC. The main challenge she noticed was that the Social Security Administration (SSA)—which oversaw federal benefits for people with AIDS—required applicants to meet the government’s definition of AIDS as a condition for receiving benefits. If an applicant’s illnesses did not match the definition provided by the CDC, they could not receive financial assistance.
…suffering from vaginal infections, bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, and kidney failure, but, according to the CDC’s definition, these disabling conditions were not complications of AIDS.
Frustrated, McGovern believed that the government’s definition was far too limited. She also discovered that it was based on the CDC’s early studies of middle-class gay men. The definition did not consider the way that AIDS manifested itself in women or poor people.
So, on October 1, 1990, McGovern filed a lawsuit against SSA, claiming the it wrongly denied benefits because it used an inaccurate and outdated definition. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included Haslip and a group of women she had referred to McGovern.
ACT UP New York scheduled a protest to draw attention to the lawsuit. …gathered outside the Health and Human Services (HHS) building in Washington DC. HHS was the federal agency that oversaw both the CDC and the SSA.
The following month they went directly to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
A CDC spokesperson said that while its scientists were “continuing to look at this whole spectrum of AIDS in women including these gynecological conditions,” they currently lacked the data required to update the definition. “We may at some point expand our case definition, but we’re not ready to do that at this point,” he said.
A few weeks later, scientists at the first National Conference on Women and HIV infection joined the criticism. About a dozen studies showed that some women with HIV suffered from cervical cancer and other illnesses not included in the CDC’s definition. “Errors of omission are matters of life and death,” said Dr. Judith Haven, an AIDS expert from San Francisco General Hospital.
Data from California added to the troubling news. The statistics indicated that women with AIDS died faster than men with AIDS. The average survival rate for women was seven months; the average time for men was two years. Women were also more likely than men to die within a month after receiving their diagnosis.
The conference laid out other disturbing statistics:
About 15,000 women had met the government’s criteria for AIDS; another 100,000 were HIV-positive.
AIDS in US men was increasing by 18 percent a year; ADS in women was increasing by 29 percent a year.
The death rate for Black women with AIDS was nine times higher than the death rate for White women with AIDS.
Women constituted only 10 percent of those enrolled in federal AIDS studies.
NIH AIDS director Daniel Hoth and Anthony Fauci did not deny that they and others had neglected to study women with AIDS.
Fauci… the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would undertake a large and long-term study of women with AIDS. But neither he nor Hoth advocated for expanding the CDC’s definition of AIDS. P. 199-204
The book is also filled with art: posters, fliers, photographs, newspaper headlines, and sections and chapters are divided with a series of fists that spell out "Fight AIDS." This book is brilliant, beautiful, and educational. It just came out in 2025, after the recent election or coup of a repressive regime in the US. First thing done was to destroy USAID and cut off funding that saved lives. So we need to know and understand what our government has a history of and how we could regress if we don't keep fighting for what we've gained through activism. Read this book!
Some notes from the book about women with AIDS:
Katrina Haslip at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in NY, cofounded the prison’s AIDS Counseling and Education Program. Released in September 1990, she helped formerly incarcerated HIV-positive women readapt to society. She referred women to lawyer Theresa McGovern, an advocate for poor people in NYC. The main challenge she noticed was that the Social Security Administration (SSA)—which oversaw federal benefits for people with AIDS—required applicants to meet the government’s definition of AIDS as a condition for receiving benefits. If an applicant’s illnesses did not match the definition provided by the CDC, they could not receive financial assistance.
…suffering from vaginal infections, bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, and kidney failure, but, according to the CDC’s definition, these disabling conditions were not complications of AIDS.
Frustrated, McGovern believed that the government’s definition was far too limited. She also discovered that it was based on the CDC’s early studies of middle-class gay men. The definition did not consider the way that AIDS manifested itself in women or poor people.
So, on October 1, 1990, McGovern filed a lawsuit against SSA, claiming the it wrongly denied benefits because it used an inaccurate and outdated definition. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included Haslip and a group of women she had referred to McGovern.
ACT UP New York scheduled a protest to draw attention to the lawsuit. …gathered outside the Health and Human Services (HHS) building in Washington DC. HHS was the federal agency that oversaw both the CDC and the SSA.
The following month they went directly to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
A CDC spokesperson said that while its scientists were “continuing to look at this whole spectrum of AIDS in women including these gynecological conditions,” they currently lacked the data required to update the definition. “We may at some point expand our case definition, but we’re not ready to do that at this point,” he said.
A few weeks later, scientists at the first National Conference on Women and HIV infection joined the criticism. About a dozen studies showed that some women with HIV suffered from cervical cancer and other illnesses not included in the CDC’s definition. “Errors of omission are matters of life and death,” said Dr. Judith Haven, an AIDS expert from San Francisco General Hospital.
Data from California added to the troubling news. The statistics indicated that women with AIDS died faster than men with AIDS. The average survival rate for women was seven months; the average time for men was two years. Women were also more likely than men to die within a month after receiving their diagnosis.
The conference laid out other disturbing statistics:
About 15,000 women had met the government’s criteria for AIDS; another 100,000 were HIV-positive.
AIDS in US men was increasing by 18 percent a year; ADS in women was increasing by 29 percent a year.
The death rate for Black women with AIDS was nine times higher than the death rate for White women with AIDS.
Women constituted only 10 percent of those enrolled in federal AIDS studies.
NIH AIDS director Daniel Hoth and Anthony Fauci did not deny that they and others had neglected to study women with AIDS.
Fauci… the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would undertake a large and long-term study of women with AIDS. But neither he nor Hoth advocated for expanding the CDC’s definition of AIDS. P. 199-204
May 27, 2025
Fight AIDS! offers a history of the 20th century queer liberation movement, starting with the Stonewall uprising and with particular focus on AIDS activism. This book is well-written in a way that is accessible to teen/student readers, with short, engaging chapters and an empathetic, educational tone. I especially appreciate how the narrative's focus seeks to empower persons with AIDS (specifically using the nomenclature PWA, rather than "patients" or "victims") by focusing on the mutual aid, community care, and grassroots activism that responded to the AIDS crisis. The book also intersperses political and scientific responses from the earliest cases in the 1970s, focusing especially on the growing protest movements that coalesced in part around ACT UP, culminating in the development of early successful antiretroviral treatments in the 1990s, juggling the different threads well. I found the writing especially moving, and the book is beautifully laid out, including significant political artworks, infographics, and community publications. A fantastic and crucial record of a difficult but pivotal chapter in American queer history.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 8, 2025
This was a well done composition of some of the history surrounding the AIDS epidemic in the US. My only critiques are that 1) there is a slight lack of intersectionality that doesn't really come through until the final few chapters, and 2) this was a largely American depiction of a crisis that affected many beyond those borders.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this book. Though enjoy might sound wrong given the subject matter, I think the author was able to portray a lot of hope, emotion, and strength alongside the sadness, anger, and death. I even learned some things I hadn't known before (like Elizabeth Taylor being a huge ally??), and got to learn more about certain aspects of activism, art, and protest that I had already begun to explore independently.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this free ebook!
Other than that, I really enjoyed this book. Though enjoy might sound wrong given the subject matter, I think the author was able to portray a lot of hope, emotion, and strength alongside the sadness, anger, and death. I even learned some things I hadn't known before (like Elizabeth Taylor being a huge ally??), and got to learn more about certain aspects of activism, art, and protest that I had already begun to explore independently.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this free ebook!
April 15, 2025
4/5 stars
Recommended if you like: nonfiction, history, public health, HIV/AIDS education, LGBTQ+ history, activism
Big thanks to Norton Young Readers, Netgalley, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review
This book is very consumable and easy to read. I flew through the pages and it actually only took me two days to get through. The content was engaging, and while the ARC I received did not have all the pictures, the placeholders indicate the finished copy will include a good number of photographs to accompany the text, which I appreciated.
Long covers a range of time spanning what is primarily thought of as the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1996, though he also includes a couple chapters set prior to the start of the epidemic to provide some additional context. Activism took a lot of different forms during this time period, ranging from marches and die-ins to health clinics and support groups to the AIDS quilt, and Long makes sure to at least touch a little bit on all of them. Some of the groups mentioned, such as ACT UP and the AIDS quilt (now the NAMES project AIDS quilt), I was already familiar with, whereas others, such as the Blood Sisters, I was less familiar with. I appreciated getting an overview of all the different groups and efforts that were ongoing at that point in time, but I found the book didn't go as in-depth as I would've liked.
Likewise, the subtitle of the book centers on activism, art, and protest, and while we do get a lot of activism and protest, there was a significantly smaller focus on the art portion of that. For a book who riffs the famous SILENCE = DEATH poster for their cover and which features multiple art activism pieces, I don't think Gran Fury is ever even mentioned except as an artist credit in some of the photos. Larry Kramer, Jorge Soccarás, and Avram Finkelstein are mentioned, at least in the chapter talking about how the SILENCE = DEATH poster came about, but the artistic efforts of Gran Fury are almost completely absent from then on, even when the AIDSGATE poster is mentioned (and I won't even touch on the fact that the Read My Lips and Kissing Doesn't Kill campaigns are both included in the book as images but aren't mentioned at all otherwise). We do get to hear of Kramer's Broadway play, The Normal Heart, but mostly as a byline. There's no greater look into Kramer's inspiration nor how he was able to get the production on Broadway. Having read a different book on AIDS activism and art last year, It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic , which went very in-depth into both the timeline of the AIDS crisis as well as ACT UP's actions and Gran Fury's , I was hoping for something more like that.
Like I said above, I did like learning about the various actions that took place to protest the negligent response to AIDS, but I would've liked to learn more about them. I wanted more than a short chapter about each, I wanted to get a better, in-depth understanding of the groups and their protests.
Recommended if you like: nonfiction, history, public health, HIV/AIDS education, LGBTQ+ history, activism
Big thanks to Norton Young Readers, Netgalley, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review
This book is very consumable and easy to read. I flew through the pages and it actually only took me two days to get through. The content was engaging, and while the ARC I received did not have all the pictures, the placeholders indicate the finished copy will include a good number of photographs to accompany the text, which I appreciated.
Long covers a range of time spanning what is primarily thought of as the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1996, though he also includes a couple chapters set prior to the start of the epidemic to provide some additional context. Activism took a lot of different forms during this time period, ranging from marches and die-ins to health clinics and support groups to the AIDS quilt, and Long makes sure to at least touch a little bit on all of them. Some of the groups mentioned, such as ACT UP and the AIDS quilt (now the NAMES project AIDS quilt), I was already familiar with, whereas others, such as the Blood Sisters, I was less familiar with. I appreciated getting an overview of all the different groups and efforts that were ongoing at that point in time, but I found the book didn't go as in-depth as I would've liked.
Likewise, the subtitle of the book centers on activism, art, and protest, and while we do get a lot of activism and protest, there was a significantly smaller focus on the art portion of that. For a book who riffs the famous SILENCE = DEATH poster for their cover and which features multiple art activism pieces, I don't think Gran Fury is ever even mentioned except as an artist credit in some of the photos. Larry Kramer, Jorge Soccarás, and Avram Finkelstein are mentioned, at least in the chapter talking about how the SILENCE = DEATH poster came about, but the artistic efforts of Gran Fury are almost completely absent from then on, even when the AIDSGATE poster is mentioned (and I won't even touch on the fact that the Read My Lips and Kissing Doesn't Kill campaigns are both included in the book as images but aren't mentioned at all otherwise). We do get to hear of Kramer's Broadway play, The Normal Heart, but mostly as a byline. There's no greater look into Kramer's inspiration nor how he was able to get the production on Broadway. Having read a different book on AIDS activism and art last year, It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic , which went very in-depth into both the timeline of the AIDS crisis as well as ACT UP's actions and Gran Fury's , I was hoping for something more like that.
Like I said above, I did like learning about the various actions that took place to protest the negligent response to AIDS, but I would've liked to learn more about them. I wanted more than a short chapter about each, I wanted to get a better, in-depth understanding of the groups and their protests.
June 21, 2025
Long captures it all and while the subtitle tells you that the book is mostly focused on the activism, art, and protesting that went into fighting the AIDS epidemic, it still captures all of the big pieces of AIDS itself, historically. For a young adult audience the only hang up would be the number of names and people that are introduced throughout the book which is hard to keep track of-- their focus, their organization, their impact because there were so many groups acting in different parts of the country attempting to fight back from their wheelhouses whether it was the artistry of creating the AIDS quilt that graced the National Mall to show the impact to the gay doctors who saw their friends dying and banded together to start addressing the problem.
It was riveting. Moving through the paragraphs and chapters was easy plus Long incorporates posters and art that made an impact to move the story forward by showing what each political administration did (or didn't), how medical advancements were pushed, and where the protesting was most impactful to saving lives though it's still a killer today. Yet, far less than it was when it was discovered.
The book needs to be in libraries. It's an absolutely essential read to understanding the fight.
"Morrison called his staff together. "People need human contact," he said. "You know how to do it." The staff nodded in agreement. "We decided that if we can't save these folks, we're gonne touch them," Morrison explained.... Human touch, it turned out, was remarkably powerful in the fight against AIDS."
"But the legacy of the first AIDS activists remains unfinished. One new HIV infection occurs every 24 seconds. There is insufficient health care. There is no vaccine. There is no cure. And so the battle cry continues- Fight AIDS!"
It was riveting. Moving through the paragraphs and chapters was easy plus Long incorporates posters and art that made an impact to move the story forward by showing what each political administration did (or didn't), how medical advancements were pushed, and where the protesting was most impactful to saving lives though it's still a killer today. Yet, far less than it was when it was discovered.
The book needs to be in libraries. It's an absolutely essential read to understanding the fight.
"Morrison called his staff together. "People need human contact," he said. "You know how to do it." The staff nodded in agreement. "We decided that if we can't save these folks, we're gonne touch them," Morrison explained.... Human touch, it turned out, was remarkably powerful in the fight against AIDS."
"But the legacy of the first AIDS activists remains unfinished. One new HIV infection occurs every 24 seconds. There is insufficient health care. There is no vaccine. There is no cure. And so the battle cry continues- Fight AIDS!"
April 7, 2025
I don’t typically rate non-fic but for this arc I’ll give it a 4.
This was one of my most anticipated reads this month. After rewatching “it’s a sin” recently I knew I wanted to further educate myself about the AIDS epidemic and in particular those who fought to be heard.
I found this to be eye opening, sad, tragic and yet full of optimism and hope. The author carefully timelines the different events, groups and details that for some people would have been forgotten or overlooked.
Being from the UK, I’ll admit I had no idea about how America handled this epidemic and I was shocked to learn about the lack of support provided to those with AIDS and the amount of time that passed between the discovery of the disease and those in authority actually doing something about it.
As a woman I found chapter 37 the most devastating, especially reading the statistics provided.
The writing makes this accessible to all different kinds of readers. It was detailed without waffling and all the information was condensed in a way that is easy to follow along and retain. I appreciated the inclusion of the artwork to illustrate some of the different campaigns produced at the time and the different chapters made this easy to pick up and put down.
For me, this was a really powerful and welcome education and having finished it, me and my partner actually discussed some of the things I’d read about.
I’ll definitely be purchasing a physical copy to re read again in the future!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read in exchange for an honest review.
This was one of my most anticipated reads this month. After rewatching “it’s a sin” recently I knew I wanted to further educate myself about the AIDS epidemic and in particular those who fought to be heard.
I found this to be eye opening, sad, tragic and yet full of optimism and hope. The author carefully timelines the different events, groups and details that for some people would have been forgotten or overlooked.
Being from the UK, I’ll admit I had no idea about how America handled this epidemic and I was shocked to learn about the lack of support provided to those with AIDS and the amount of time that passed between the discovery of the disease and those in authority actually doing something about it.
As a woman I found chapter 37 the most devastating, especially reading the statistics provided.
The writing makes this accessible to all different kinds of readers. It was detailed without waffling and all the information was condensed in a way that is easy to follow along and retain. I appreciated the inclusion of the artwork to illustrate some of the different campaigns produced at the time and the different chapters made this easy to pick up and put down.
For me, this was a really powerful and welcome education and having finished it, me and my partner actually discussed some of the things I’d read about.
I’ll definitely be purchasing a physical copy to re read again in the future!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read in exchange for an honest review.
August 9, 2025
Fight AIDS! is a fantastic book not just for young readers but as introductory reading for anyone wanting to learn more about the devastating AIDS crisis that at its peak plagued the United States through three presidential administrations who chose to ignore rather than help the millions who died. Michael Long does a great job providing activist groups that derived as a result of the crisis as well as quotes from leaders of mentioned groups, most falling victim to the disease themselves. With each chapter, Long does a great job capturing the neglect and violence many of the communities who were susceptible to AIDS were subjected to as a result of misinformation and the lack of resources to provide education to all—not just gay men. You can also feel the emotions of those who grew upset as the government allowed millions of people to die without a rush for a cure or how the process went about finding one (learning how placebos were used during drug trials in a crisis like this was perhaps the most devastating piece of information I learned about). Not enough about art activism despite making a claim about the importance of art in a time like this.
November 4, 2025
If you're only going to read one book about the emergence of the AIDS epidemic, it should be How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS. But this book, for YA readers, is also a good choice for someone who is looking for a fast-reading and easy to understand history. I especially liked how Long included the experiences and activism of women struggling to help the health establishment understand the different impact HIV/AIDS has on women. I do wish the author had included MORE examples of the visual art of the era - the introduction and title had me expecting more.
December 3, 2025
I wrote this in December of 2025. I read this book on World AIDS Day. This is a beautiful, heartbreaking history of HIV/AIDS. I was a kid during the height of the epidemic but I remember Rock Hudson kissing Linda Evans. I graduated high school in 1994 so I remember Pedro Zamora.
I mentioned that it's 2025 because I live in the United States and, for the first time since the start of World AIDS Day, the current administration will not acknowledge World AIDS Day and has ordered all government agencies, even health agencies, to ignore World AIDS Day. Books like this are important because we have an administration trying to erase history. Knowledge is power and collective memory cannot be erased. As ACT-UP said, silence = death and we cannot remain silent.
I mentioned that it's 2025 because I live in the United States and, for the first time since the start of World AIDS Day, the current administration will not acknowledge World AIDS Day and has ordered all government agencies, even health agencies, to ignore World AIDS Day. Books like this are important because we have an administration trying to erase history. Knowledge is power and collective memory cannot be erased. As ACT-UP said, silence = death and we cannot remain silent.
May 3, 2025
What an incredible primer on the AIDS epidemic! A lot of the nonfiction works about the AIDS crisis are exceedingly sad, for obvious reasons, but it may deter some possible readers. I think this is accessible, beautifully illustrated, and contains so many vignettes that will provide excellent hooks for readers to find themselves engaged with the history. The history being told is incredibly important, and I'm glad there is now an accessible way to make that happen.
Thank you to W.W. Norton, Michael G. Long, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
5 well deserved stars.
Thank you to W.W. Norton, Michael G. Long, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
5 well deserved stars.
June 19, 2025
In the spirit of "And The Band Played On" and "Stitching a Revolution," Michael G. Long offers a take on the AIDS crisis and the activism that sprung up in the face of political indifference or outright malevolence. Told for an audience of people who were not alive to live it themselves, this history is especially important in today's political climate, where activism is becoming more and more necessary by the day and HIV/AIDS is seen as a solved problem. Long's writing is bound to inspire a new generation of compassionate individuals who will keep fighting this fight.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this title.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this title.
April 1, 2025
What a great and powerful book! Some of the formatting could have been better but overall this book is fantastic and full of so much history and facts and people that everyone should read it.. if you “enjoyed” this book I couldn’t recommend “it’s a sin” a British tv show that goes into the aids endemic in detail. This show will break your heart into a million peaces in the most beautiful ways. Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review. So educational!
May 19, 2025
An in-depth and informative, whilst still being quick to read
Obviously it's not a 'light' read but it is a highly informative one
I received an advance copy for free from NetGalley, on the expectation that I would provide an honest review.
(A caveat here that my ARC had most of the images missing and multiple formatting issues. My recommendation is based on these not appearing in the final copy!)
Obviously it's not a 'light' read but it is a highly informative one
I received an advance copy for free from NetGalley, on the expectation that I would provide an honest review.
(A caveat here that my ARC had most of the images missing and multiple formatting issues. My recommendation is based on these not appearing in the final copy!)
July 3, 2025
Well written, moving and informative, the author maintains a balance between all three that some authors aren't able to achieve. There are many many names in the text, something that can sometimes overwhelm me, but the personal details and emotional moments helped me keep everyone straight, and also care about each person. The art is impactful, and I appreciated seeing it in this context, as some of the images I had seen before, but missed the importance and innovation.
March 18, 2025
Netgalley ARC - This tells the important history of the AIDS epidemic and AIDS activism. It's well-written and as digestable as possible for such a difficult topic. My only gripe is that the Stonewall chapter is missing the importance of black trans women like Marsha P Johnson. Trans people were mentioned in other places, but we can't erase transness from Stonewall.
Read
July 6, 2025My library mixes in the teen non-fiction with the adult non-fiction so I didn’t even realize that this was intended for teen readers. That said, I very much appreciated this book. Found it very interesting and easy to read (although not necessarily easy to swallow). I have read and watched quite a few things on the AIDS crisis, and I still learned a lot of new things in this one.
July 13, 2025
I have to admit that I didn't know too much about the AIDs crisis and what led to it at the time. So I really enjoyed reading this novel and hearing the history and how it was eventually taken seriously. The one large takeaway I had was that no matter what issue we're talking about, it always seems to be minorities and women who are ignored and forgotten.
December 2, 2025
I really enjoyed this read. It’s definitely an overview for younger readers, but I learned a ton about the timeline of AIDS (especially in the 80s).
I wish it had included more about the art - not just the posters introducing each chapter. But the creation of a narrative through hundreds of smaller stories was engaging and educational.
I wish it had included more about the art - not just the posters introducing each chapter. But the creation of a narrative through hundreds of smaller stories was engaging and educational.
April 18, 2025
A brisk but informative journey of the literal and metaphorical fight that spanned from day zero of the AIDS crisis to the widespread availability of effective combination therapy. Well researched and cited; never dull in any way, somber but never fatalistic.
August 18, 2025
Fight AIDS! is intended for young adults but I think it is a great read for anyone interested in the subject. While the focus is on activism, it did not shy away from the reality of AIDS.
October 22, 2025
A great crash course/summary of the AIDS epidemic & the activism that helped curb it. It was really interesting to see where the symbols that represent the movement came from how art was used.
October 25, 2025
This is an unusal book. But you can understand at the end of the book.
January 4, 2026
“…although we are surrounded by uncertainty and despair, we are survivors, we shall survive again, and we shall be the strongest and most gentle people on Earth.”
June 12, 2025
Thank you to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company | Norton Young Readers for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
Fight AIDS! is an incredibly timely history lesson, weaving in personal stories with a comprehensive history of the AIDS epidemic.
Obviously—this is a hefty hefty topics spanning across the country and over years. It's a lot for one book to tackle, but Michael G. Long is able to keep the writing engaging, tight, and focused. The chapters are shorter, each focusing on a different aspect of the epidemic, which allows Long to cover an incredible amount of ground. His writing is clear and factual, making the tragedy of it all that much more heartbreaking.
I rounded up to a 5 stars from 4.5—the only reason is that I sometimes wished we dove just a little bit more in depth in certain chapters or expanded more. But, overall, this was a fantastic read and absolutely necessary.
Fight AIDS! is an incredibly timely history lesson, weaving in personal stories with a comprehensive history of the AIDS epidemic.
Obviously—this is a hefty hefty topics spanning across the country and over years. It's a lot for one book to tackle, but Michael G. Long is able to keep the writing engaging, tight, and focused. The chapters are shorter, each focusing on a different aspect of the epidemic, which allows Long to cover an incredible amount of ground. His writing is clear and factual, making the tragedy of it all that much more heartbreaking.
I rounded up to a 5 stars from 4.5—the only reason is that I sometimes wished we dove just a little bit more in depth in certain chapters or expanded more. But, overall, this was a fantastic read and absolutely necessary.
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