Prepare to have your heart buoyed and broken in this riveting account of the response to the AIDS epidemic that's as educational as it is difficult to put down. Based on thorough research and the author's own experience as a gay man and a reporter in New York when the disease emerged, this book presents the fear, hope, and civil rights struggles of the 1980s and 1990s. In unflinching, brutally honest detail, France traces the lives of the people behind the constellations of aid and advocacy movements and presents their struggles in a way that will have readers stirred by each diagnosis, cheering the efforts to find a cure, and growing frustrated at the political establishments that ignored the terrible tragedy as it unfolded. Readers will learn of the medical efforts, the clashes of personalities within groups such as the Gay Men's Health Crisis, and the people who raised awareness of a disease that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives. VERDICT This highly engaging account is a must-read for anyone interested in epidemiology, civil rights, gay rights, public health, and American history. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16; see "Editors' Fall Picks," p. 30.]—Susanne Caro, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula