Looking Back - The Hot Zone

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston
Nonfiction - Science
1994 Random House
Finished on March 3, 1996
Rating: 4.75/5 (Terrific!)




Publisher's Blurb:

The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.

My Original Notes:

Excellent! Terrifying! Very suspenseful. I couldn't put it down. Made my stomach churn at times. Good detail without being too scientific.

My Current Thoughts:

This must have been quite the page-turner, as I read it in two days. I remember how much it frightened me, and when Ebola broke out in 2014, I was once again reminded of how terrified this book made me feel. I also read The Demon in the Freezer, another biological account by Preston, which had a similar impact on me.

How about you? Have you read either of these biological thrillers? They read like fiction, but they're even more disturbing because they're factual. Now that I’m older, I don’t care to read this sort of book. The world is already too frightening.