Book #1 Review #1

In my English class during my sophomore year of high school, my teacher provided the class with a list of books that stretched five pages. Our assignment was to pick one of these books and write a “Critical Research Essay”. Intimidated by the long list of books, I decided to judge the books based on their titles and covers. This was my greatest mistake. A few days after I had submitted my selection, I decided to finally buy the book and start reading. To my horror, I discovered that the book was over 600 pages long of dense material–something I didn’t anticipate. 

This experience taught me a valuable lesson: do extensive research before choosing a book to read!

For my book, I chose All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks. At first, I was deciding between this book and Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang. At first, I’ll admit that I picked these two books because of their page count. But, I grew to love their stories. On one hand, I really wanted to read Beautiful Country because of the connection with my own parents’ journey through their immigration to the states. On the other hand, I also really wanted to read Burks’ memoir about her experience working through the AIDS crisis–the effects of which can still be felt today. Ultimately, I decided to choose All the Young Men because of the parallels between the AIDS epidemic and the current pandemic. Both were fueled by government negligence stemming from the stigmatization of the disease and the discrimination against marginalized groups. I really want to see a view of the AIDS epidemic from a third-party point of view, for it can provide more insight into the different struggles that people faced during this period.

So far, I’ve read Part One of the book. In this first part, Burks talks about her first time in the hospital ward and meeting a young man afflicted by AIDS, helping him when no one else would. She recounts her own story as she became (in)famous for helping other gay men affected by the disease. She really manages to show the stigma against AIDS or even homosexuality, in general, in the South. The book reads easily despite the heavy topic, and I really love how Burks manages to keep the tone conversational, helping the reader feel involved in her journey. Despite her own struggles, such as the death of her ex-husband or the loss of her job, Burks still manages to preserve in helping others. Part One ended with her resolution to shed more light on the AIDS crisis, something that was willfully ignored by the public. In my opinion, the book as of now has been a rollercoaster of emotions, and I am very excited to continue reading her story.