PositiveThe Boston Globe... [Macy] offers hope, however muted, that the opioid epidemic is indeed a solvable problem ... Macy eschews the false objectivity of \'both sides\' journalism and directly identifies the villains of this story: the Sackler family, who own Purdue Pharma, and the incompetent policymakers and greedy executives who compounded what the Sacklers started.
Steven W Thrasher
RaveThe Boston GlobeThe pandemic brought America’s health inequities into stark relief, but The Viral Underclass illustrates that the problem isn’t new, and that it is embedded more deeply than many of us realize ... Thrasher, a gay Black man, brings figures from the viral underclass to life in this engaging, enraging read. It’s no spoiler to say that most of their stories end badly; what’s infuriating is that each outcome would have been shockingly simple to prevent on its own. With access to health care, educational opportunities, a living wage, safe housing, or social support, none of these lives would have begun the downward spiral toward tragedy.
Janice P. Nimura
RaveThe Boston GlobeJanice Nimura’s candid account engagingly captures Elizabeth’s many contradictions ... The meticulously researched narrative [...] offers an intimate look at the close-knit, high-minded Blackwell family, including Elizabeth’s younger sister Emily, who followed in Elizabeth’s medical footsteps ... By depicting this complicated character fully, faults and all, Nimura tells the kind of nuanced tale that people like to hear.
Patricia Miller
PositiveThe Boston Globe\"Miller’s compelling account is both shockingly relevant and a grim reminder that, when it comes to double standards, we haven’t advanced all that far since the Victorian era ... Miller documents the trial vividly, pulling details from stories that dominated nearly every newspaper in the country for weeks ... It’s an empowering tale, and Miller makes a convincing case that Pollard’s cultural contribution was significant and lasting, helping pave the way toward gender equality. Obviously it didn’t get us all the way there. But reading her story now could bring us closer.\
Beth Macy
PositiveThe Boston Globe[An] impressive feat of journalism, monumental in scope and urgent in its implications ... As Macy compellingly demonstrates, history tends to repeat itself.
Belle Boggs
RaveThe Boston Globe...an eye-opening, gorgeously written blend of memoir, reportage, and cultural analysis [which] breaks this taboo to powerful effect ... These are heavy topics. But Boggs broaches the political without didacticism and the personal without sentimentalism or self-pity.
