A very readable business history of the rise and relative fall of Juul as a force in vaping and tobacco. The author sets up the core mistake as aligning to close to cigarette manufacturers both implicitly (in creating hip, youth friendly marketing) and explicitly (in courting and eventually agreeing to a tobacco company buying a major share in the company. The goal of prioritizing a corporate cash out over a public health mission is also criticized, with the culmination of all of these decision being extensive parent controversy, angry regulators, disillusioned staff ("I thought I was working for a tech company not a tobacco company!"), and laws that kneecapped vaping to make it less attractive to kids. While the narrative isn't riveting, it is still a very interesting story.

Incredibly interesting book on the slow rise of a new health crisis for young Americans. I was amazed at how much has gone into not only making Vape hugely addictive but in making it seem both safe and cool. I highly suggest this book its both highly educational and disturbing.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* tbh i do not know much about the nicotine vapes and have never used one so i found this pretty interesting information wise, would like to do more research on the subject now too

“All those years of loving and hating smoking in equal measure had crystallized into one moment of recognition. Enough was enough. If they couldn’t find a way to quit smoking, they would invent one for themselves.”

As soon as I saw the cover of this book I knew I needed to read it. I am a Respiratory Therapist, which means I am a lung specialist 🫁 . There has been a lot of talk within the field about the horrors of e-cigarettes, so reading about how they came to be was high on my priority list.

“Most smokers don’t actually want to quit. They just don’t want to die.” **this is an absolute fact‼️ 🚬

Two Stanford grad students, James Monsees and Adam Bowen, dreamed of a way to quit smoking. Enter Juul, a modern device designed to vaporize potent doses of nicotine while alleviating the negatives associated with smoking 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴 (the initial target audience) like carcinogens, odor, and health risk. Fabulous! This sounds great in theory, right? But, and this is a big but, they then go and make it smell like pineapple and cotton candy and mango. I am not entirely sure what they thought would happen 🙄. So now we have children addicted to nicotine that smells like candy, and they are needing lung transplants and getting popcorn lung (VERY bad) as teenagers. Oye.

According to the research in this book, it all just comes down to money. Doesn’t everything though? This book digs deep into the original good intentions, and how money and the tobacco industry and dash of corruption and even more money collided to create yet another health crisis related to smoking and nicotine. Nice job guys 🤦🏼‍♀️.

Juul quickly became a $38 billion dollar company. When the kids started dying, though, moms got PISSED, politicians got involved, and Juul’s worth tanked. “If you could have asked for a worse outcome, aside from bankruptcy, I’d love to hear it. That’s a tragedy.”

Thank you to Netgalley, Henry Holt publishing, Macmillan Audio and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Now available!

This was a surprisingly well-written and thoughtful take on an issue I am quite well versed in. I work as a Prevention Specialist in a substance abuse treatment facility. I have sat through countless webinars on vaping. But this was a fresh perspective.

I like that it was written as a business biography. I think a lot of decisions were made that way and are best understood through that lens.

It wasn’t amoral. Rather, it wasn’t coming with pitchforks. It took an empathetic angle on the people behind a public health crisis. I think this is more damning, actually. If they are evil, there’s no chance for them to be anything else. If they just didn’t care or care enough, I think there is real culpability there.

So, all in all, it was an entertaining and interesting telling of a subject—no matter how much you know already.

Narrator - Sean Patrick Hopkins
Genre - Non Fiction
Rating - 4 out of 5 stars
Narration Rating - 5 out of 5 stars

I was a little disappointed about this book. All because of an assumption made by me. When I read the title I thought it was going to about all different types of vaping not just about the rise and fall of Juul. As a former vaper myself I thought it would be a good look into all aspects of vaping but I quickly realized it was all about Juul which I have never used.

With that being said this was a very interesting book. I learned a lot about the technology of Juul and the consequences of vaping. I also learned some interesting things about Juul and how their company rose and fell quite rapidly. Even to the point that most of the major players are not even involved with the company anymore. Also that they struggled with the same things I struggled with when I was vaping.

I loved the narrator. He made what could have been a very boring book very interesting. With a quick tempo (I always listen to review books at 1x speed.) Also he was very upbeat through the whole thing.

All in all I would strongly recommend this book to people who have considered vaping, teens, and parents that may have found out their child is vaping. I wish I would have read/listened to it before I started vaping that is for sure.

Reviewers Note - I vaped for years to try to quit smoking. I never did quit smoking and now have lung damage as a result of vaping. I do not of some of the more severe side effects that were described in the book but I now have to have a rescue inhaler on me at all times and am taking the same daily drug that COPD patients have to take. Even though I don’t have COPD. I am back to smoking regular cigarettes and some of the damage has reversed. I don’t cough as much and my chest does not constantly hurt. Some may ask why I didn’t just quit both. I will say this, nicotine is very addictive. I was hooked from my very first cigarette and now smoke about a pack a day. It is not easy to quit but I have several times for long periods of time and after listening to this book will be taking another try at it in the near future.

It was a thorough history of the company and how much it has impacted adolescents. However, I would have liked more discussion of the health impacts that have already been seen. In my opinion, we shouldn’t be glamorizing a product that is so addictive and harmful.

A very important history of the creation of Juul, "Big Vape" is a depiction of how its harmful Juul's lack of thoughtful direction sabotaged an invention that could have been revolutionary in reducing adult nicotine use. If only this company had slowed down so its product could have been marketed and regulated properly to begin with.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for this copy of Big Vape by Jamie Ducharme, narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins.

I am always impressed by works of non-fiction that focus on extremely current events. Reporting on events that are changing as you write about them must be a challenge, one that is masterfully met by Jamie Ducharme. Big Vape covers the entire history of e-cigarettes, from inception to recent controversy. Centering on Juul, Trust me, if there is anything that you have ever wanted to know about vaping, it's in here and well worth your time.

I listened to the majority of Big Vape on a recent long car trip and it did not disappoint. The narration by Sean Patrick Hopkins kept me interested while not being distracting from the content. I was very impressed by the range and depth of information. I learned a lot about the industry behind vaping, making me a more informed consumer. Great job all around!

I have experience with the topic of this book. During the period it describes, I was writing policy news under contract with the FDA Center for Tobacco Products and my wife was a public health lobbyist active in tobacco control. Electronic Smoking Device policy was part of both of our daily lives. Big Vape fills in behind the scenes details about what was going on at Juul that I did not know. Overall, this is a timely corporate history about the rise and fall of an intensely controversial company.

Most of the book is meticulously researched and well supported by facts. One major exception is the author's acceptance of the company's origin story as a pair of smokers who were just trying to find a way to help people quit cigarettes. Ducharme doesn't consider the possibility that the company was simply founded to make money. The book details how the founders poured over documents from older tobacco companies and then copied their youth marketing strategies, yet somehow it still assumes altruistic motives.

(Thanks to NetGalley for providing an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.)

Thank you for the advanced copy! Big Vape is thoroughly researched and well-reported. The mistakes made by Juul’s executives are almost laughable, they seem so extreme and unrealistic. I can’t believe this all happened!

However, the book contains so much technical information that we don’t really get a sense of James and Adam as people. It’s a scathing indictment of Juul and Big Tobacco, but not so much a reflection of what kind of person allows for these things to happen. I found the inclusion of every lawsuit and detail to be too repetitive and interruptive of the narrative to really be engrossed in Big Vape for long periods of time.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillian Audio for an advanced audio book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

Big Vape tells the story of Juul and the e-cig market. Well researched and methodical, Jamie Ducharme does a very good job of laying out the rise and fall of Juul.

I wish the author had more firmly asserted that while the original goal was to reduce health risks, the fact that the company's marketing was towards teens, lots of in school programing done, not refiling retrofitting of the pods with the FDA, the company chose time and again to grow at the expense of others.

Excellent narration by Sean Patrick Hopkins.

Fantastic investigative look at Juul Labs and the e-cigarette boom. The author thoroughly investigates the tremendous rise of Juul, and the mistakes made by its creators. The emphasis is on the epidemic rise of teen vaping and all of the ways that Juul contributed to that problem. The narration is fantastic as well. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in nonfiction, startups, regulatory affairs, and current events.

Big Vape by Jamie Ducharme was a very easy listen. I was able to follow the narration without any issue, which isn’t always the case with a non-fiction title. The voice of the narrator was enjoyable to listen to and I liked the linear flow of the book. The reader was able to meet the principle players and learn about the company, it’s history, the development and mission all in what felt like a novel form. I didn’t know much about vaping before listening to this book, but I always assumed it was the same as smoking. I never thought it was a “safer” alternative to smoking. But I was shocked by how many teens were vaping. I am ashamed to say I had never talked to my 13 year of son about this topic until the first day I started listening to this book. I got about 75% finished with it and that night had a conversation about vaping with my son. I should not have been surprised to learn many students at his middle school have been caught vaping this year. 6th & 7th graders? Crazy. An important book and a timely one. I will be watching the upcoming court cases with interest.

In 2005, two Stanford University grad students - and smokers - founded a company to disrupt the nicotine marketplace by creating a ‘healthier’ device that would tempt people away from combustible cigarettes. Fifteen years, millions of vapers, and hundreds of lawsuits later, “they would be remembered not as public health saviors, but as merchants of addiction.”

So writes Time magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme in her journalistic chronicle Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul. The book follows in the footsteps of John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood and numerous other inside story looks at Silicon Valley unicorn startups. These “rise and fall” tales can be mesmerizing and often translate well to the small screen. In fact, Big Vape has already been optioned by Amblin Television for a documentary series.

The addicting (sorry) piece of Juul’s story is how much these guys screwed things up. Most notably, they clearly targeted candy-colored advertisements to kids, and they allowed Big Tobacco (Altria Group, fka Philip Morris Companies) to acquire a 35% stake. These missteps led not only to a teen vaping epidemic, but also to their ouster. Juul Labs is now run by Big Tobacco executives. It’s also losing its hip factor and being replaced by newer, cooler brands, so it seems Juul might be going up in smoke.

Big Vape is an informative exposé, though I do wish it had been structured somewhat differently. It’s primarily told in chronological order, but the introduction of lawsuit documents peppered throughout make it feel choppy and repetitive at times. As one example, I believe we’re told that Mango flavor accounts for a third of Juul pod sales on at least three occasions.

I still recommend Ducharme’s book for fans of this genre, but those who don’t read much nonfiction can catch up on a streaming service with the docuseries sometime soon.

My thanks to the author and Macmillan Audio for my gifted advance copy via NetGalley. The audiobook is confidently narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins and clocks in at 10.5 hours. Big Vape is slated for US publication on May 25th. 3.5 stars

In the beginning, there was a puff of smoke.

Juul's story is something out of "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" and "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". Authored by Time magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme, "Big Vape" is a fast-paced, well-researched book about how two Stanford graduate students developed an idea for a new and enticing e-cigarette that would help people stop smoking.

The book is "unputdownable" and reads like a nonfiction thriller.

Ducharme's research was presented in a clear, concise chronological order; making the story of how the Stanford grads' "big idea" grew into a $38 billion-dollar company with an uncertain future, very easy to follow.

Before listening to this book, I knew very little about the vaping industry. I was unaware that Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA Commissioner (2017-2019), was originally on "Team Juul". WHY? Dr. Gottleib was a cancer survivor and viewed Juul as a less dangerous option for smokers than regular cigarettes.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb's opinion was reversed, however, when it was revealed that Juul's marketing campaigns were targeting youth (and not adults) and new research emerged on Juul's deleterious health effects.

With youth vaping increasing by 78%, Gottlieb authorized the largest coordinated enforcement effort in the FDA's history, conducting a "nationwide undercover blitz" that issued large fines to retailers who were illegally selling Juul and other e-cigarettes to minors. Regulators also pressured Juul Labs to stop selling many of its popular flavored brands that appealed to youth and this negatively impacted their revenues.

I listened to the audiobook. Narrator Sean Patrick Hopkins did a superb job with the book's narration.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.

Well written and researched journalistic reporting highlighting the vaping company, Juul. As a non-smoker I am not as in-tuned with companies involved in the industry and it was absolutely fascinating to learn about the beginnings of company, product evolution, leadership dynamics, and their collaboration with tobacco companies. What started as a well-meaning company attempting to help smokers wean from nicotine, spiraled into an addictive youth craze resulting in significant health complications.

Sincere thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co for an advanced audio copy in exchange for an honest review.