I really enjoyed this. This book brings forward the topic of the AIDS epidemic to the mind of today’s teens in a beautiful way. We have purchased this and I recommend it as much as I can.

What an important book‼️

I learned so much from Lynn Curlee’s candid stories put in historical context of a time I admittedly knew little about prior to reading this book. I especially appreciate how accessible this will be for young people 👏 Broke my heart, but also renewed my hope in & gratitude for caregivers & care providers.

I appreciate NetGalley & Charlesbridge Teen for providing me access to this ARC that I couldn’t put down! Since its release I have purchased for schools I work with in my technology coordinator role.

A gorgeous account of living through the AIDS epidemic. This memoir chronicles Lynn's life as a gay man who witnessed over 40 friends die from AIDS and HIV. It details his friends' and lovers' lives, along with pictures, all of which made me tear up. As a young queer person, I am devastated I haven't been taught these stories of incredible lives cut short. I intend on sharing this with my gender and sexuality alliance on campus as a "must-read." I also loved the ending author's note, comparing the epidemic to COVID. The title of this book is incredible on that front.

I absolutely loved the formatting, it reminded me of the old nonfiction books I used to read as a kid which made it so digestible. The only hiccup I had was keeping track of names, but when that became a huge issue, there was a helpful index of names at the beginning of the book with a short explanation of who everyone was. I received a copy of this through NetGalley and am providing my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Charlesbridge Teen for the copy!

This is one of those books that feels so difficult to review because, while I found it fascinating, it was a very difficult and sad read, but sometimes those are the most important books. I can see this becoming a staple of uni modules on intersectionality alongside the likes of Bersani’s Is The Rectum a Grave?

Right now, in the wake of COVID, this feels like such an important text on intersectionality and the ways governments will happily throw marginalised groups under the bus as collateral damage, whether that be queer people or disabled people.

The first book I finished on my holiday was this ARC of The Other Pandemic: An AIDS Memoir. It’s a great introductory book on the AIDS pandemic, told through the author’s personal experiences as a gay man living in New York and LA during those years. The goal: to teach those for whom COVID19 was their first pandemic about the AIDS crisis.

I already had a basic understanding of this period of queer history, but I still learned a lot from this book. The way it intertwines general information with a personal story brings everything closer than just accounting the facts would have. The writing is engaging and feels right for a young/new adult audience.

A powerful personal account of the onset of the AIDS crisis, as seen through the eyes and experiences of one of its survivors, artist and author Lynn Curlee, that also draws comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Curlee's deeply affecting first-person testimony of the emergence of the AIDS epidemic and its horrific consequences is an incredibly valuable slice of history from someone who was part of the community and saw the terrible toll the disease took on his friends and lovers.
In parallel with the Covid-19 pandemic, government inaction allows the situation to escalate with devastating consequences - decades later we clearly had learnt nothing and our government's priorities still had very little to do with "we the people". In parallel with Covid, fear and disinformation abounds, communities are blamed and ostracised, and lives are lost due to inaction.
An important read, and a time in history that we still have a lot to learn from.

Overall a decent introductory look on the AIDS pandemic during the 1980s and 1990s through the personal account of the author. I can't compare it to anything else, since I haven't read any other "AIDS memoirs" so far, but I have a feeling this won't stand out among others.

1.) I wished I had known this was for younger readers in the beginning of the book, because I kept asking myself why it reads so young and at times very patronizing.

2.) It's not a very reflective memoir. It's more a list of names and places and things these people did and accomplished throughout the years. I can empathize with the trauma that the author and his friends have gone through but it was difficult to care for all of these people when all we got were some superficial facts about them. This memoir truly shines in the moments when the author tells us about his relationship with his life partner up until his death.

3.) One of the things that interested me the most was the "compare the experience of COVID-19 and AIDS" aspect of the synopsis which doesn't hold up at all. It's like the comparison was an afterthought to make this story more timely for marketing reasons or something.

This book is undoubtably an extremely hard memoir to have done and I commend the author for telling it and honoring all of those people he knew that died during the height of the AIDS epidemic, while also acknowledging his and his partners privilege for much of it. I did find the storytelling aspect of the novel a bit bland and matter of fact, this may have been due to the amount of extreme trauma and distress losing so many close friends leaves. Either way, I still think this is an important part of history that needs to be talked about and told as much as possible. The biggest downfall of this book is there was very little compare and contrast to COVID pandemic which was more implied by the title of the book but what was there was well said.

This book was part memoir/part history and it explores the AIDS epidemic from the very personal point of view of the author who is gay and a painter. Up until today hadn’t heard of the author or his paintings.
I think this book was ok. If you haven’t read any prior books on the AIDS epidemic period this is a good introductory book but not necessarily the book I would recommend. I couldn’t help to keep comparing it to how to survive a plague and it didn’t measure up.
The author mentions several friends that he had through out his life and how the pandemic shaped and affected all their lives but it was easy to loss sight of who was who or what they did. I could only keep like 3 people in mind. Maybe it would have been more helpful if less people had been referenced and followed along.
Also, as someone that works in the field, this book has stigmatizing/judgmental language that shouldn’t happen nowadays (injection drug users instead of people who inject drugs among other examples, blame promiscuity, etc).
I do appreciate its contributing to history and helping people not forget this awful period that killed million of Americans while the government did nothing,

The Other Pandemic by Lynn Curlee, is a beautifully written first hand account of the AIDS pandemic for young and new adults. Curlee talks about the feelings of the early days of the pandemic before anyone in his circle contracted the virus. He details the information and misinformation that flowed through the media. The tension as it circled ever closer to him until members of his chosen family, his circle of friends started getting sick and dying. He lays out the activism, the staying at bed sides, the seeing friends for the last time, all juxtaposed against his life and work and loves.
The Other Pandemic is beautifully written, filled with photos from the author’s life of friends and events witnessed. The stories are concise, with an easy to follow timeline, and uses language that is understandable by a wide range of audience. In the end he compares the ongoing AIDS pandemic with the COVID pandemic as he was living in lock down. It gives the book a powerful ending that makes the AIDS pandemic not only understandable, but more relevant to the younger generations currently coming of age.

Thank you to Charlesbridge and Netgalley for the ARC
Though very short with about 165 pages, 'The Other Pandemic' packed an emotional punch. This book is Lynn Curlee's memoir about the devastating years of the AIDS pandemic in New York, and it portrays the horror of the slowly unfurling epidemic and the grief of losing so many you love.
With a lot of love and admiration for those he lost, Curlee takes the reader through his personal account of those horrifying years for gay men up until the loss of his life partner.
Even though this is hardly the first time I read about the history of AIDS, I think it is of the utmost importance to spend time with such personal accounts because it's easy to think of this pandemic in an abstract sense, as something of the last century or historical. Curlee reminds us what it meant to live through those not-so-long-ago years and survive.

This memoir opens with using the recent COVID-19 pandemic to introduce young adult readers to the AIDS pandemic before diving into the Curlee's memoir. It is an effective opening because, as it addresses the difference in the two pandemics, it establishes that many things in the memoir will be different, too -- how people grew up, how gay people were seen and treated, how technology and access to information were more limited. The narrative voice used throughout is reflective, but also guides younger readers less familiar with the history of this pandemic through major ideas and events. The book features an excellent bibliography in addition to photographs and the author's primary experiences. This book would make an excellent addition to school or public libraries, as well as personal ones.

I remember when AIDS petrified everyone. When I started to read this book, it got me thinking about how we went from mass panic to a point where being able to manage HIV is a possibility.

This book reminded me of the crazy that was those years and, of course, we now can say that we lived through two pandemics. Never thought of AIDS has a pandemic, but the gift of this book is that it make me strop and questions myself.

Well written and well researched.

This book was amazingly written. As a younger queer person I know about the AIDS pandemic. But hearing such a personal account makes a complete difference. There were so many lesser known details I hadn't known. This is an amazing book that draws much needed parallels. It was so awesome to see what an aspect of queer life was like back then. At the same time it was crushing to see what was taken.

This book caught my eye because of the Covid-19 framing device, it served as a nice point of reference for a younger audience. Which transitions me into what is my biggest issue with this book, it feels like it is written for a younger audience than it's being marketed toward. The author's experience as a children's author shines through in that it feels like the audience he had in the back of his mind while writing was a juvenile crowd as opposed to young adult. As someone outside of the target age group, I'm hoping that's just my own age showing, but there were times that I felt talked down to.

Maybe that's a good thing though in some ways, as the community continues to cycle through the same arguments it's been having since the 60s as far as respectability politics and the correct way to be gay. It serves as a reminder of the older generation that's been lost and what needs to continue to be fought for. As a memoir, it provides an intimate view of what it was like to live at the time. It's also a singular view. One that can and does leave out some of the other members of the community who were also fighting during this time, and who were also affected by the pandemic. The author is aware of the privilege he had and what it meant during the time, which helps keeps it from feeling totally out of touch. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was sanitizing what was a brutal time in Queer history, but in keeping things palatable for a young audience I do think some things were left out. Again though, it's a memoir not a history so it's a look into a personal perspective of the time.

One thing I liked was that it covered the before and after the crisis. It helped keep things from feeling hopeless, as a story about the AIDS pandemic and a foil for Covid it's nice to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel which as the author can attest can be hard to see when you're in the middle of the pandemic. A worthwhile read for sure.

The use of Covid-19 as a framing device - a way to make this story more real or more accessible to younger audiences - was such a smart choice for this memoir. The book is a good bird’s eye view of the epidemic for younger audiences while being a poignant account of a very personal relationship. I do think it glossed over a lot of the much uglier, grittier realities of the AIDS epidemic - but that could also be my own difficulty putting aside my prior knowledge since AIDS activist art is my research area of study.
I did appreciate that the author often acknowledges that he, his partner, his loved ones, friends, etc. did have access to a lot of resources that so many did not have during that time. At one point he mentions that the epidemic “didn’t seem to effect [their] daily lives,” and that kind of statement could come off a little callous if it wasn’t couched in those acknowledgments.
One of my only real criticisms of the book is that it seems like the author does dance a few times with a bit of a sec shaming view of the epidemic. It isn’t a pervasive theme by any stretch of the imagination, but just left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
Overall, this was a very touching memoir written in a very accessible way for younger audiences who may not have any real grasp of how far-reaching the AIDS epidemic was in the gay community.

I feel honored to get to experience reading this book pre-publication. Lynn Curlee's memoir about coming into his own as a queer person during the AIDS epidemic was heartbreaking to read, especially as he compares it to current teens growing up surrounded by COVID.
As an avid enjoyer of queer history, I have found it necessary, though incredibly difficult, to learn about the AIDS crisis. I think one of the best ways to do so is to read, watch, or listen to the stories of those who lived through it, and this book is the perfect example of why. I learned, yes, but I also got to feel (for however brief the book is) connected to a queer elder who paved the way for people like me stepping into our queerness in this post-AIDS world. I have never known the fear that I would get a deadly disease, unknowingly spread it to a partner, and eventually wither away while the general public watched me with disgust. I am lucky, but so many were not. Reading about Curlee's friends and partners who one by one succumbed to a virus we knew very little about reminded me of how much divides my generation and the previous one, but it also fostered a sense of community between them and me. I don't know AIDS on a personal level, but I do know COVID. I became an adult during the pandemic and it changed every bit of me. I know what it is like to have my world altered indefinitely because of a disease the government would rather make a political issue than a public health one.
This memoir never expects its audience to feel at fault for anything that happened to the people it talks about -- it's aimed at teens. But it expects them to slot the stories of the queer men who died into their outlook on the pandemic. Yes, AIDS caused an entire subset of people to live in fear for over a decade, but those people emerged from those hardships stronger than ever and even more willing to fight for the right to survive. I was sad reading this, but I was also uplifted. Encouraged to make my voice heard. To refuse to let those in power take away from the life I am supposed to be allowed to live. It doesn't shy away from the tragedy of what happened to queer people in the 1980s, but it also shows the joy those people experienced. This is a story of perseverance, of people getting beat down and finding a way to get back up again and dance and sing and fight for what is right.
I think queer kids growing up with access to books like this will realize how important the fight we've been fighting is. We've been going at it for so long, and it's exhausting, but if we keep it up no child will ever grow up afraid that they will never get to live openly with the person they love. For too long we have lived quietly, let our anger simmer beneath our skin, but this book is a clear example of the good that can come from letting ourselves be angry. Things have changed. Things will continue to change. And artists like Lynn Curlee will tell the stories of those who can't tell them anymore.

This was a very powerful memoir of the author's personal account of the AIDS crisis. This book includes photographs, memorial pages, art, and historical highlights that help paint a broad and personalized picture of the crisis. I think this book does a beautiful job of honoring the people he lost during that time as well. For such a short book, he makes a point to tell us about each person before they became sick.

I will say the beginning of this book was a bit off for me. When the author talks about growing up in the sixties with segregation and the Vietnam War, I was a bit confused as to what audience this book was written for. When I later found out this author had written mainly children's books, it made sense that the beginning felt a bit like I was being spoken down to.

An extraordinary book - a book particularly focused on the audience of teenagers but should be read by everyone. It is a story of the other pandemic (AIDS) as well as LGBTQ+ history that unfortunately has been largely forgotten and I encounter young people who take for granted the rights they have today and also are not concerned about AIDS. This book is the author's memoir told in a fact-based and personal heart-felt manner. This style is extremely effective at both describing what happened and how it felt in the 1960's growing up gay through the 1980's and early 1990's to present day. History must be taught so rights that earlier generations fought so persistently and courageously for do not get taken away. This is also a very moving story of love and loss -- of friends, lovers, and families. There are personal photos throughout and at the end photos of those the author lost with brief bios -- I could barely read it through my tears. Thank you so much Lynn Curlee for sharing your story with the next generation so we will never forget. I highly recommend this book.

Very good book at a man that dealt with AIDS via his friends and/or lovers. I thought the author was very honest and gave it to you straight. This book is an eye-opener on what people deal with either having or knowing someone with this disease. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.