When I first heard of Ebola, my reaction wasn't terror, it was something like, "oh, that's the foreign version of the flu. It'll pass." The older I got, the more I started to realize, "Wait, this is actually a pretty big deal. Whoa, whoa, whoa, there's a fifty to ninety percent fatality rate?" But still, I remained calm. Africa was far away. There were four known cases in the United States. Then (two days ago), I was given The Hot Zone, a book about the emerging of one of the worst "predators" known to humankind. It described the three types of Ebola and its sister, Marburg, and then tells the story of a monkey testing facility that became "hot" (active) with "agent" (the word for a extraordinarily dangerous virus.) Holy smokes, that was the most terrifying thing I ever read. I'm dead serious (no pun intended). What the virus does to you...I can't even find the words. It basically turns your insides to liquid. It replicates until you have become a "walking biohazard", says Richard Preston, the author. I read that book in bed. I couldn't fall asleep. I didn't want to turn off the light. But the thing is, you don't really know what you're scared of. There's no ghost, no monster, nothing that could sneak up on you. But I still jumped at every noise, listened to make sure I could hear human voices, and that that persistent whistling noise was just my heater. I don't know why, but reading about that virus had the same effect on me as that scene in Jurassic Park where the bad guy is making a run for it, and then gets eaten by that Dilophosaurus. Read at your own risk!
Ages: 21+...JUST KIDDING! 13+
Awards: Overseas's Press Club of America's Whitman Basso Award and the McDermott Award. The author himself acquired so many awards, I couldn't possibly pronounce or type them all in a day.
You'd like this if you like: Fever 1793 (don't read The Hot Zone if you are expecting it to be the level of intensity this book is at. It's ten times more scary.)
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The Hot Zone
