Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between

by Joseph Osmundson

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in NonfictionNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Literary HubA leading microbiologist tackles the scientific and sociopolitical impact of viruses in eleven striking essays.

Invisible in the food we eat, the people we kiss, and inside our own bodies, viruses flourish—with the power to shape not only our health, but our social, political, and economic systems. Drawing on his expertise in microbiology, Joseph Osmundson brings readers under the microscope to understand the structure and mechanics of viruses and to examine how viruses like HIV and COVID-19 have redefined daily life.

Osmundson’s buoyant prose builds on the work of the activists and thinkers at the forefront of the HIV/AIDS crisis and critical scholars like José Esteban Munoz to navigate the intricacies of risk reduction, draw parallels between queer theory and hard science, and define what it really means to “go viral.” This dazzling multidisciplinary collection offers novel insights on illness, sex, and collective responsibility. Virology is a critical warning, a necessary reflection, and a call for a better future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Essays, LGBT, Queer, Medicine, Health

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 7, 2022

Reviews

[Petra X]

Update Why I can't write a review when the author has made his presence known, is thata review is my opinion of a book. The author intruding makes me have to consider him, his feelings etc. And I don't want to. If you are talking to your friends at the table over coffee in a restaurant, you are going to critique the food openly between you. Should the chef come out and introduce himself, it becomes a whole other ballgame. And so this is.
__________

"Even if I were straight, God forbid...", would "Even if I were gay, God forbid..." be so acceptable. I think not. The author has made his present known that he is reading my review. So this pisses me off, I don't like being watched, I don't like knowing an author is reading what i have to say about his book. So I'm not going to review the book for now. Suffice it to say, it is very well written, has some interesting essays, but some.. well, God forbid I would skim them. 3.5 stars.

I would like to correct the author on one thing though. It's all right going on at such length about how under this capitalist system, White privilege has screwed Blacks so much even in medical care, and then he uses a White fact-checker to come up with this as correct,

Many prostate cancers require no intervention at all. They are subclinical. We live with them until something else kills us.

Prostate cancer in Black men is a virulently aggressive disease that strikes in the 40s and without radical treatment, death in 6 months, as happened to a friend of mine. As happened to my bf as well. He didn't die but nothing, not even Viagra, works. Miserable for a man in his 40s. One in four Black men get it, as opposed to one in eight White men, who get it in their 60s or later, and as the author says, don't usually die from it. So maybe stop checking this only from a white privilege position?
_________

"Whiteness and racism and patriarchy and homophobia and transphobia and the foundational force under all of them - capitalism - are extinguishing our ability to continue living on this planet." And all these problems would be solved if the 'foundational force under all of them" was... Marxism instead? Is there a single non-capitalist country which isn't homophobic, transphobic and patriarchal? Are any of them - Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam not racist against Black or Indigenous people? No.

And who am I writing this? Am I White? I am Jewish, so mostly I am White (but then I am evil) and sometimes not White (then I am definitely evil) and sometimes, as where I live, a White but not-to-be-included White having married... gasp, a Black man (until they want a favour since I married into the top political family of the island, not some handsome beach boy as my friends assumed. Why do people never assume that Black people are not at the top of the game?).

The essays I am reading now, are just one more addition to the endless stream on how bad Whites are, how they are behind everything bad that happened to everyone non-White, right back to the days of feudalism according to this particular author. Everything. No exceptions so far. "Whites are spiritually bankrupt," Naturally, Trump has been mentioned dozens of times. Can't we get past Trump? Can't the discussion on White privilege move on from chest-beating, forehead furrowing confessionals? If we have identified the problem, can we not try and come up with a solution? And no, it's not the modern Marxism of the so-called pigs on the Farm Progressives.
__________

This is NOTHING like the blurb at all. I thought it was going to be a science book, so I was really surprised to read, "The first time I went down on a guy," (he liked it) (I like the book).

[Renu · Rating 1 out of 5]

**Fair Warning: Harsh Critique Below**

Woof.

The title of this book is "Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between." However, it should be named "Collection of Essays I Felt Like Sharing That are Somewhat Connected to my Life, Covid-19, White Privilege, Queerness, and Anything Else I Felt like Writing About in that Moment."

My biggest complaint on the book is how it is marketed, both in the blurb on the back and the author's description, to be a book about Covid-19 and HIV told from the expert perspective of an NYU professor of microbiology while drawing on unique testimonies and perspectives from the LGBTQ community. Instead, to me, it ended up being a random assortment of essays that made fanatical parallels to queer culture and were extremely unpredictable in tone and topic. I truly couldn't comprehend what the, if there even was one, central topic, narrative, argument, or theme of this book could be. Is it about the author's personal life? Is it about virology? Is it about the pandemic? Is it about queer culture? Is it about white privilege and institutionalized racism and discrimination? I honestly don't know.

The main meat of the book is just diary entries followed by response essays roughly from the Covid-19 lockdown/ high infection rate days. At one point the author just transcribes entire podcasts that he did with different people and calls it a chapter. Calling this book a collection of essays just feels like a copout to having minimal structure and design while also flitting from unrelated topic to unrelated topic and somehow tying everything back to his personal life and experiences.

Two of my harshest criticisms is the idealized/ fantasized role that the queer community takes on in the book in tandem with the almost reckless use of the word f*g(s) to refer to himself, his friends, and the gay community at large. After some independent research I can potentially understand his attempted reclamation of the slur but it is so unrelated to the marketed topic of the book that I can't imagine how anyone who is not extremely familiar with the contemporary currents of gay culture wouldn't be thrown off guard by his casual use of the word. He is somehow dismissive, condescending, and sometimes just flat-out crude in how he speaks about the gay community, hookup culture, sex parties, etc. while also proselytizing his deep respect, appreciation, and love for the queer community. I'm sure the vast majority of what he is saying is going way over my head but I just couldn't make sense of it.

The second of my two harsh criticisms is that I feel that the book is somewhat of a testament to the author's own life and accomplishments. We jump from essay to essay while somehow consistently coming back to the author's own personal achievements, childhood stories, cooking skills, intimate details from past relationships, and so on.

In summation, I would not recommend this book to anyone who is lured by a false sense of learning about HIV, Covid-19, or virology from an NYU professor of microbio's perspective. I would only recommend this book to someone who is interested in reading something that was written almost as a stream-of-consciousness collection of one single unique person's thoughts on life, sexuality, gay heritage, pandemic experiences, relationship experiences, respect and admiration for HIV survivors and activists, and any other topic that was deemed appropriate to include.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't help but be a little disappointed with these collection of essays. The premise of the essays seemed really promising: a queer and anti-capitalist reframing of microbiology, particularly relevant in these COVID times. While the book, at least initially and in some key moments, made gestures toward that project, it really never did the kind of queer re-imagining of viruses that really ever developed into anything all that compelling.

I was really drawn to an early point about the heteronormative ways that we frame and norm the reproduction of viruses. Osmundson invites us to consider how "reproduction" is a fraught concept in queer frameworks because of how reproduction and the production of offspring is inherently a normative concept. That was really interesting--it raises questions about how a queer man participates and generates knowledge in a field dominated by heternomative and masculine epistemologies. But I wasn't sure that idea ever really got fleshed out: what would an alternative framework be to understanding viral futures. In other words, if "queer futures" is distinct from and alternative to a normative future, then what would it mean to understand a queer "viral future?" These were the kinds of opportunities that this book had to explore some interesting territory, but never really fleshed those ideas out. Instead, the essays tend to define viriology and microbiology separately from the queer and gender theories he often alludes to, but never quite does the work of going the distance in applying one to the other.

The focus more on surveying theories rather than doing the work of theorizing these ideas together seemed to be a bit of an issue for me as I was reading. It was clear that Osmundson is an academic--sure, he'll remind the reader a few times in every essay that he has a PhD, but you could tell in the way he writes that he's an academic. Namely, the essays read much like literature reviews of what he's read (and he's certainly well read), but "literature review" would honestly be a bit generous because the essays were mostly annotated bibs where he takes one scholarly piece at a time, summarizing them, and then moving to the next without drawing out much of a connection. The reader is invited to, basically, make the assumption themselves about why a complicated quote is relevant to the essay.

The issue of such an approach is that we get a lot of ideas in the abstract without seeing much about how these ideas operate in practice. For instance, some essays bemoan the horrors of capitalism and the tyranny of production. Yet, it becomes pretty clear in his journal entries and memories, that much of the persona he constructs in the essays represent a pretty capitalist ethos. Take, for instance, his journal entries about the first year of the pandemic. Speaking for myself, the harmfulness of the pandemic goes beyond just the deadliness of the disease, but the ways capitalist systems--and the people who head them--dropped any pretense that they cared about the health and well being of people and, at every opportunity, chose protecting the institution than people. In this way, my reaction to the pandemic was much more similar to Devon who falls into a deep depression after being laid off from his job. Devon becomes immobilized by pandemic and all that came with it. And when seeing Devon move through the pandemic, I couldn't help but being seen.

Osmundson started out being sympathetic to Devon but eventually becomes frustrated and poorly hides his disappointment in Devon's inability to contribute to their relationship--whether in being productive or in having sex. Meanwhile Osmundson boasts of all the writing he's getting done during the lockdown--and not just writing, but don't forget publishing too! He's writing journal entries, doing research projects, writing non-fiction, making complex dinners. He throws himself further into productivity. Sure, he frames it as a means of overcoming personal struggles, but it reads much more like, frankly, boasting. Half the whole book just seems like a pat on his back at how productive he was during the pandemic. There was no introspection here about how he seemed to thrive in production during the pandemic in the face of how so many others, like Devon in his own small shared quarters, who just didn't see a point in any of this anymore.

Osmundson's inability to understand Devon is made even more peculiar when he often slips in that he, himself, struggles with anxiety. "Anxiety" is often dropped in as a word he attributes to himself, but through all the personal testimony in the book, there was barely any evidence that anxiety was a constant thread in his experiences with the pandemic. In other words, had the essayist never mention he struggled with anxiety, the reader would have never known that was a thread in his experiences--it's just not engaged with despite much of his essays mentioning or dancing around that topic.

But not just anxiety, but I can't help but feel he sometimes treats queerness with a similar buzziness. In other words, he seems to be well read in queer theory and he has sex with men. But what makes a queer ethos? And does Osmundson's persona in these essays demonstrate a queer ethos? I'm not really sure. Much of what he speaks to in his life and memories were fairly conventional: thriving in producing capital, crying about whether he wants to go to Elite Private Liberal Arts College A or Elite Private Liberal Arts College B, getting a PhD in microbiology. It's not that I have an issues with these kinds of things, but it was kinda hilarious how these kinds of things just wasn't interrogated at all.

All that aside, I think the one thread that I really enjoyed was the power of language and naming as a way people experience their reality--and that capitalist naming creates capitalist outcomes. This implies that a queer language creates a queer reality--though that wasn't really fleshed out. In the essay On War, he offers alternative language of "care" but i'm not convinced that "care" is alternative to labor. I dunno. So much of these essays had a lot of good ideas, but when carried to completion, it wasn't as complex or compelling as an essay promised.

[Connor Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars - This is the best book I have read this year, and quite possibly, in years; I truly wish I could experience reading it for the first time again. It is hilarious, irreverent, and caring simultaneously as it parses through the meaning of viruses and all they lay bare in this deeply fractured and violent world. Embracing the dialectical nature of love and care in the face of seemingly inexorable loss, this book is a rejoinder to the lackluster thought and navel-gazing about the COVID-19 pandemic. Its form embodies the very ethics it seeks, replicating care, love, intention, and rigor through a queer playfulness and expansiveness I've yet to encounter. It is a book that I would try to read in bed or on the couch or on the balcony and find myself having to get up to grab a pencil to write down the many resonances and insights. The careful readings of other thinkers are so rich that they have broken my bank account from being unable to not go and buy those books to read next. I already feel like I miss this book since finishing it, as it is a presence I've carried (and hopefully can continue to) with me as I've read it.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Virology, Joseph Osmundson combines his occupational passion for microbiology and his personal passion for writing to reflect on the ways in which viruses shape us and we shape each other.

Virology is a collection of disconnected essays tied together by a general thread of self-reflection in times of viral upheaval. Some of these essays take the form of scientific reflection - Osmundson is, after all, a virologist - while others take the form of personal reflection, of personal growth before, during, and after COVID-19. At times the essays seem out of place - like the one on archiving activist history (which actually was my favorite essay). Osmundson writes about the anxieties we all felt at the beginning of the pandemic and the ways in which racial disparities and metaphor shape our responses and reactions to this life-shattering event.

Osmundson is at his best when he writing about science: he has a way of connecting complicated, erudite ideas to our lives as we live them today. And his own personal narratives are also compelling: it feels nice to hear a scientist reveal his own emotional experiences of love, lost love, and friendship. But his essays on politics and general cultural ideas feel less compelling: his ideas on metaphor, war, and race are ideas I agree with but his support for his arguments and ideas in them seemed short-changed. And at times his reflections on his own past relationships and his own (sometimes seemingly extreme) reactions to COVID-19 make the book cringe-y in parts. Overall Virologyis a great book to read as you, the reader, reflect on the ways in which this pandemic or ones that have come before - especially the HIV/AIDS crisis - shaped you and your experiences; this book is a perfect summer read.

[meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collections of essays about viruses and how they affect society. The author points out that viruses do not have minds of their own, the only thing they seek to do is to replicate in a host's cells. But this simple action has deep and far reaching effects. His essays go on to explore what viruses like Covid-19, HIV and influenza mean for societies and how they have affected the author in his personal life.

I like the author's interdisciplinary approach to his collection of essays, by introducing elements of scientific discourse to explain in an accessible manner the topics at hand to elements of literary discourse to see different author's perspectives on viruses and illness. I also liked how the author discussed the matters of gender, sexuality and race in relation to viruses and their impact in marginalized communities.

In all, this is definitely one of my favorite books this year.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once you get past the idea that this is not the popular science bit of non-fiction that you thought you had bought, it goes down fairly easily. These essays are written with passion and a fair bit of anxiety baked in. Maybe it's too soon to revisit the horror of lockdown, but that's what we get. There is also some valuable stuff about viruses and the way they work, but the books deals with the emotional impact of the pandemic almost as much as the medical facts. The most fascinating parts for me were the stories of the people who had fought AIDS and rallied governments and pharmaceutical companies to develop and deliver solutions - vaccines, prophylactics, whatever it took to reduce the mortality rate. Seeing people who lost so many flex the same muscles they had been forced to develop in service of a whole different contagious disease was moving and even heroic.

Eye-opening and occasionally eye-watering.

[C. Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contagious writing.

[India M. Clamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A leading microbiologist (Joseph Osmundson) takes a magnifying glass for a thorough look into the impact of viruses from a socio political lens via essays. Viruses are quite unseen in the food we eat, the people we interact with, and ultimately inside us. Actually viruses flourish and shape our health. Microbiologist Joseph Osmundson tucks us in his white coat pocket and brings the reader along for the long ride to understand the structure and mechanics of viruses.

“My Mom reminded me that I wanted to be a virologist my whole life. A virologist or fireman, is what I used to say. Guess which one I dressed up as for Halloween?”
—Joseph Osmundson"

[Ali Lloyd · Rating 2 out of 5]

had high hopes.

[Tessy Consentino · Rating 5 out of 5]

God I loved these essays!

[Liam Oznowich · Rating 1 out of 5]

A true DNF for me. Read the first two essays and skimmed the rest. This was...really not it. The blurb on the back of the book sounded so good, but the first two essays were opaque, repetitive, and drew some connections with queer theory that made my eyes roll. Queer theory (or most theory, really) can be either revelatory or pedantic and unnecessarily complicated. It doesn't seem like there's any "ok" theory, it's either phenomenal or complete bullshit. In my opinion, good writers (Maggie Nelson, Olivia Laing) draw surprising but accessible connections between disparate topics and back them up with convincing evidence. Bad writers grasp at straws that make the reader go, "huh?" This falls into the latter category. When he started to say viruses are inherently queer, I was done. I'm literally gay as shit but I don't think everything needs to have a "queer interpretation" of it. Some things are just what they are. No interpretation required. And when he's not interpreting, he just repeats the same scientific facts over and over. I think this was a stylistic choice, in the way that some writers will look at the same object or fact in different contexts to extract new meaning each time. If that was his goal, it didn't work. No thanks.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so entirely up my alley, I am big into essays that blend medicine and history and social science. I am PARTICULARLY interested in essays that do this around AIDS, and then add trying that all into the current COVID pandemic and of course I was going to need to read this.

This essay collection goes a lot of different paces. If you just want something that is going to discuss COVID in relation to other viral pandemics, this book may stress you out. But if you want something to also think about how communities gather and define themselves, how activism works (and sometimes doesn't) in fighting a pandemic, about the function of writing, both private and public, when going through extraordinary times, about personal relationships, about sex, about employment, about risk, then this might be the book for you.

I read this more or less an essay at a time, taking breaks in between. Certainly some essays worked better for me than others, but I was always interested in what Osmundson had to say.

[Darlene Laguna · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for addressing timely topics honestly, factually, and genuinely. There were times where I felt it could be tidied up a bit with some careful editing, but overall the tone was one of true care, concern, and emotion. I learned a lot about many things and appreciate all the books and authors this author pointed me towards - some familiar and some new to me.

[Rachel | rach gets lit(erature) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Definitely recommend the audiobook for this one.

Fav quote:
"In quarantine you might be all by yourself, but through that act you prove that you know you're not alone. Not in your community and not on this planet. Quarantine is a social act, not a personal sacrifice."

[Rick H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the early essays that mixed queer theory and virology in an incredibly unique way. I soured on later ones that were especially irksome because they were read in a performative voice that only a high school drama teacher could love.

[Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Effective admixture of microbiology, queer theory, and the personal essay

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter of this book was not my favorite - it felt disjointed and he kept bouncing around to different topics from paragraph to paragraph, so at first it was difficult to follow his thoughts. It was also about waiting in line at Trader Joe's, not the most exciting topic. Once I got past that, though, the book was really great. Osmundson is a great essayist and brings in a lot of stories and thoughts from other writers that at first seem unrelated, but he is able to tie them all together very well.
What I most liked about the book was that he was able to explain a lot of science about viruses while at the same time connecting them to deeply human subjects. I feel like I have a much more complete understanding of viruses and their place in the web of life than I did before, but also a much better understanding of what it means to be sick or well. He has a lot of quotes from Susan Sontag, Audre Lorde, Ursula Le Guin, Munoz, Alex Chee. There's a lot of queer theory included in the book, since Osundson is bisexual and focuses a lot on HIV/AIDS. I learned a lot about HIV and its current treatments, and that was really fascinating. Osmundson was very revealing about his personal life/sex, which was very vulnerable with him, but at times he kept repeating things in this vein and I think it would have been more effective if he had not said the same thing so often. (Mostly about his fear of HIV)
Overall, this was a great book, especially for living through COVID. I really appreciate him and other scientists and how they have been able to teach people about viruses and how to protect each other, even when the State of New York was ignoring the requests he and other scientists made to sequence RNA samples to find out how much spread there was early on in the pandemic. I appreciated all his transcribed interviews and miscellaneous diary entries he included in this book - it made it feel very real and I think for people who haven't experienced what we did, it will be a great resource in the future. It definitely helps me to remember the early days of the pandemic more clearly.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded down.

this book is very queer! it is at least as much about queerness as it is about viruses! if you don't know a lot about science but do know a lot about queerness, you are 100% prepared for this book!

i put together a post of all the brilliant works he talks about because i was so moved by their breadth. it's here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4ZYyZbrz...

In 2021, overwhelmed by the pandemic, one of the first things that soothed me was Sarah Schulman’s massive book about ACT UP, Let the Record Show. It reminded me that I get knowledge and comfort and a path forward from the same place, over and over: other queers, always. I undertook a self-study about HIV/AIDS, seeking out all sorts of sources that were not just the white gay men who’s stories felt so dominant when I came to understand my queerness in 1994.

This book makes the connections I needed— viruses, pandemics, how we keep ourselves in each other safe, how our queerness helps show us who we can be and what we can ask of each other, that the government will never save us, that we save each other through love and resistance and fking and joy and rage and possibility over and over and over again.

These books and poems and essays and speeches were some of the first places that I learned some of those things, and seeing them again, in this new context, felt like home and felt like a door opening. I recommend this book, but I also recommend the books he talks about, I recommend this history and this future and this way of being in the present.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved parts of Virology, but I struggled to see the overall vision of the book and how some of the essays fit. In many ways, this is more a memoir and diary of Osmundson's world during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and his activist work as an epidemiologist.

As someone squeamish about diseases who could never be a medical professional, Osmundson included just enough about viruses and how they work, and not so much that I was pushed over the edge. As a queer person, I appreciated how he traced how the hard work done by HIV/AIDS activists in the 80s/90s translated directly into lessons and direct medical approaches to how to deal with and think about COVID-19. I also applaud how Osmundson brings his whole self to his work and worldview without siloing parts of his life.

It is mind-numbingly frustrating and horrifying to see how funding, government bureaucracies, and private corporations only invested in capitalism and nothing else drive our healthcare responses. I've read a lot about how a certain tech billionaire is preventing a global vaccine because he has patents, they're making him money, he has world leaders' cellphone numbers, and they think he's so smart, even though he has no medical expertise.

[Megan Amico · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 stars) I’m usually someone who likes my books in pristine condition but this one looks well-loved because I’ve carried it with me EVERYWHERE the last few weeks. Each topic in this book is approached with such care, and he acknowledges & discusses the implications of each across race, class, gender & sexuality. The central theme of viruses & their cultural implications we so often ignore was so interesting to dive into.

A large part of this book is the author’s personal journals throughout quarantine, & even his intellectual essays contain his own stories and anecdotes. As someone who likes nonfiction books that feel like they’re discussing things WITH you as opposed to talking AT you, they made this book even more enjoyable. I also had the pleasure of meeting him at his book signing for this 2 years ago :)

[Bethan Davies-Williams]

an interesting collection of essays - somehow managed to capture many of my thoughts and feelings on viruses and disease, why I am fascinated by them and also heart broken. There were sections I didn’t understand or perhaps didn’t agree with or couldn’t relate but I’m glad I read. And sometimes I couldn’t get what the point was or where we were going and the structure confusing. I was lost some of the time, couldn’t get the metaphors and then some sections were great. So my opinions complicated, but yeahhh.

Not really your typical scientific literature - it’s not a book on viruses as much as humanity, stigmatisation of disease, class, culture, racism, queerness and many more.

[Heather Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m teetering between 2 and 3 stars // Parts of the essays were full of heart and information contextualizing HIV, COVID-19, and the people they disproportionately affect. And the rest of it was very redundant and didn’t bring much that was new to the conversation on COVID-19. Omundson is from a microbiology background but that was so hidden and simplified that it felt like any old Joe was writing about his interpretation of the world’s reaction to COVID-19, which again, wasn’t very new or generally helpful.

[Ally Perrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The technology of smallpox variolation - the precursor to our modern vaccines - was carried to the Americas by an enslaved person, Onesimus. Owned by the man given the credit, Cotton Mather. Onesimus told Mather of purposefully rubbing infectious pus on his skin to protect against a subsequent infection, which Mather then used to save lives during a smallpox outbreak in Boston.

[Icarus Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intensely personal and poignant, looking at the impact of illness on human relationship and what the pandemic really means. A look into one man's life and the disruption of it, the attempts to help heal, and the crossover between Covid-19 activism and the activism of the AIDS pandemic. Worth the read, cautiously hopeful and unflinching.

[Robin Mandell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything.
A more complete review is coming later.
This is a top read for this year.

[Sammy Kutsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

excited to reread this as a book, feel like I will get a lot more out of it. I enjoyed the audiobook and thought it was well produced just having trouble focusing as of late

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title is a misnomer. There is only one chapter where a superficial tutorial on viruses is presented. I love science books. This isn't one. Perhaps the author hoped to include it in his CV.

[Sarah Girome · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure what I expected this book to be, but it wasn’t it, and for that I am grateful. Osmundson’s approach was clever and poignant. Looking at Covid through the lens of a queer scientist examining the lessons learned during the HIV/AIDS crisis is as compelling as it is deeply heartbreaking. Somewhere inside, I knew we were making many of the same mistakes but to have it detailed and outlined by someone in the fight forces us to call it by name. I’ve never read a book with this structure and while all the essays were well done some of them, for me, were more powerful.

On whiteness- This is something I see every single day as a RN and while you can never really do this topic proper justice for all the harm it causes; this was a good effort. Osmundson does a fair job at calling out systemic racism and the part it plays in lack of access to healthcare as well as some of the mistakes we, myself included, make in our attempt to right this simply by not being able to see our own white privilege. He also points out that, in addition to racism costing lives through healthcare, it’s also costing lives through an inability to organize and fight for a living wage which is also something I see every day as our union fights to organize more workers. He does rightfully identify that “Much of the health, and who bears it, is grounded in our society’s easy conflation of health and financial privilege” but I felt this essay did fall short in also addressing how access to education plays a role in this.

On mentorship- I didn’t expect to be so impacted by this essay. Osmundson speaks about the fear of coming out in a world with sometimes little guidance about the struggles, and joys, that await us, and how that contributed to the dangerous narrative created during the HIV/AIDS crisis. As someone who only recently came out, I understand exactly where he is coming from. It’s rare that I find someone who is living a similar experience and I struggle to find mentors in the community because of where I live. Seeing this written on these pages reminds me I’m not the only one who’s walked this path and it gave me pause forcing me to acknowledge where the empty pockets live as I relearn who I am and how I fit in the world as my true self.

On War- this was incredibly emotional for me. We’ve all seen the news and watched as Covid and the lives it cost were reduced to nothing more than statistics and compared to war. We’ve seen healthcare workers go from heroes to a forgotten group forced to beg but still ignored. Watching the people coming out of their homes to applaud us while we went to work then turn around and go to that unmasked party while we watched our friends die because of that selfish decision. We went from being respected and needed to being expendable. We were compared to soldiers because it was easier to tell us this was something we had agreed to, part of our job, and so we had no right to speak out and ask for help. We became unnamed so that the public, who were making choices they knew would kill their neighbors, could avoid having to name what it was we were being asked to do. Osmundson called this out with compassion and didn’t shy away from showing us how ugly we are when faced with having to think about the wellbeing of others. It’s been a long time since a book brought tears to my eyes, but this essay brought back all the desperation, anger, and fear that I thought had been completely forgotten by others and, quite frankly, myself. While I could never forget how poorly Trump handled Covid I did forget that in one of his many ignorant moments he told the press that we were “running into death just like soldiers run into bullets. It’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see”. I can promise you, watching myself and my coworkers go to work every day knowing the risk we were putting ourselves in was not beautiful. It was certainly incredible, but not in the way he meant. To see that called out by someone not in healthcare made me feel seen and selfishly, it felt good.

Not everything about this book was perfect. Some essays, like On Activism and the Archives, were structured in a way I didn’t care for. It felt a bit like Pulp Fiction to me which is a format I don’t care for. If that’s something you enjoy, then this probably won’t bother you. I also found some parts provocative simply to be provocative and some of it was a bit too on the nose.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book and really related to the story he told. His honestly was a nice change of pace and, at times, challenged my ideas about the world and my contributions. I can see how this book may not be for everyone. I can absolutely see how someone could fail to connect with this message and point of view. As a queer woman in healthcare this felt personal and in a weird way comforting.

[☽ Chaya ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't what I expected. I thought it'd be a lot more science'y. It wasn't, it was mainly philosophical reflection.
I really enjoyed it but I just wasn't what I thought I'd be reading.
He writes really well and most essays were to my liking. I must say I didn't really like the war one for some reason.