Have I read this before: I feel like I started reading this back in junior high (I distinctly remember seeing a copy on the library bookshelves at school) but I must have thought “oh god this is hard” and stopped.

(It wasn’t hard to read; I was just an idiot.)

Review: This book was absolutely not what I was expecting, but was still quite enjoyable. It was a bit dry, but not unbearably so. It was actually quite interesting reading this book given the current COVID climate today, as a decent portion of the book deals with an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the Caribbean and how ethics play into testing and distributing a treatment to those infected. COVID obviously isn’t as serious as the plague, but the discussion of the development of a treatment for the plague, distribution of it, and the ethics of it all seem very…relatable.

Favorite Part: Some of Lewis’ short, blunt descriptions are great.

“Professor Max Gottlieb was about to assassinate a guinea pig with anthrax germs, and the bacteriology class were nervous.”

“Like all ardent agnostics, Martin was a religious man.”

“Clif Clawson, at forty, was gross.”

Rating: 6/10