I'm afraid that the book was so badly formatted and difficult to read that it was not my cup of tea. It seemed repetitive and seen only from the author's vewpoint with little opposing opinion to be seen. what could have been a great historical adventure story just fell flat for me,

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, finding it both horrifying and enlightening. The exploration of how yellow fever spread, particularly through water transmission, was eye-opening for me. I had never considered that aspect, assuming the disease was solely transmitted by mosquitoes and not through contaminated water. Perhaps my ignorance partially stems from living in a desert region, where we have limited exposure to such diseases. Even then, we are only dealing with heartworms in our dogs, which are brought from dog rescues originating in other states.

What impressed me about this book was its focus on the communities and individuals across the Americas during that time. Usually, historical accounts tend to center around the lives of wealthy white men, which can be disheartening as it overlooks the experiences of women, the poor, and people of color. However, this book delves into the lives of these often overlooked segments of society, providing a more comprehensive and meaningful perspective.

I am sincerely grateful to #NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this enlightening book that delves into America's lesser-known plague.

It was interesting learning about the yellow fever outbreak in 1793 something that was left out of my history books. No surprise there. It was actually more interesting to learn about that the 1918 Spanish Flu.

I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. It was horrifying but informative. I never really thought about how yellow fever was able to spread around like it did. I didn't consider the water. I thought that since it wasn't spread from person to person, but from mosquitos, it wouldn't be able to infect people like it did. I mean part of my ignorance comes from living in the desert too. We are barely having to deal with heartworms in our dogs and those are brought from dog rescues who bring dogs from other states.
The book also goes into details about the communities and the people around the Americas and what they were doing at the time. Usually I find that uninteresting because it is the history of rich white men. We never hear enough about how women were coping or how things affected the poor or people of color.
I am traumatized and also amazed that we have come all this way as humans and yet we remain just as ignorant of pandemics.

2 stars. Just okay... BARELY. This book had the potential to be three or even more stars, but I found it to be VERY poorly structured, written, and edited. Examples? Too many, I'm afraid. First off, the title pronounces the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 to have been "America's First Plague," yet the author very clearly and somewhat repetitively demonstrates that, in fact, this was not our first epidemic, not even of yellow fever. Next, he keeps talking about this plague as a "pandemic," but almost exclusively centers his story on Philadelphia's experience. The author speaks of a certain ship as the Ground Zero carrier of this plague to Philadelphia, yet also talks about other ships also responsible for bringing plague to our then-capital that year.

The many stops and starts and the constant circling back to previous points and parts of the narrative are part of my criticism of its structuring. In terms of editing? Embarrassing. Was there any?! There are certain people in the narrative that come up again and again because of their roles and/or their accounts. That's fine, to a certain degree, but... you could make a drinking game of how many times he repeats "the diarist Elizabeth Drinker" and "the publisher [I forgot his name]." I mean, I can admit to having a short memory and often appreciating when someone's role or occupation is reintroduced, especially if it's been a while since they figured in a book, but I counted AT LEAST 12 times that the author wrote the above. And don't get me started on the amount of typos!

The people of Philadelphia, including, hey, did you hear, "the diarist Elizabeth Drinker" and "the publisher ----," come across as real people, one of the stronger points of this book, and we get some snippets of how this early plague reverberates in our own plague times. So I was glad to read about the diarist Elizabeth Drinker and the publisher so-and-so, along with Dr. Benjamin Rush and others. Oh, hey, did I tell you? Elizabeth Drinker was a diarist and So-and-So was a publisher; I hope you didn't forget if you're still reading this.

Many thanks to #NetGalley for a copy of this book about America's not-first plague and the diarist Elizabeth Drinker and the publisher So-and-So in exchange for my honest review.