Very repetitive, but times in quarantine are like that. It was great to get a first-hand look at what life was like in Wuhan during the lockdown and what the government’s response (or lack there of) was in leading up to it. There are reasons why this book is hard to find and why Fang Fang was criticized so much while writing her diary. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t because of its repetitive nature and definitely was because of her frank criticism of the Chinese government.

It's interesting to read about the similarities and differences in lockdown, but it's a diary and I could only force myself to read the first half. Maybe I'll finish at some later date.

I've been aggressively socially-distanced for almost a year. For no particular reason, I might add. There is a concern that someone in my family might be especially unlucky, as it has been a long time since I felt lucky about matters of life and death. But mostly, it comes from a desire not to participate in this horror. If I stay home, I can't give covid to 1 person who becomes 2, who becomes 4, becomes 8, and so on increasing exponentially until I'm the mother of untold horrors. So maybe it's a knowledge of exponentially increasing numbers that keeps me home. I'm up to 331 days so far. That said, Fang Fang's couple of months in quarantine seem very small for her drama about isolation. But the main thing I found riveting about it is the careful dance of censorship she plays with the Chinese government. It's a horror within a horror, and truly the source and origin of all the covid deaths and sorror.