guy who's only seen one story about aids before voice: wow getting real RENT vibes from this 🤔🤨

But in seriousness: I read this book for research purposes. I don't like stories about annoying, miserable people being annoyingly miserable, so I can't say that I enjoyed it. Additionally, I hated the way bisexuality was framed as an identity at best for those too immature to "pick a side", and at worst a betrayal by those who have insinuated themselves into the gay community, but are unwilling to commit fully.
 However, the author does a wonderful job constructing a compassionate, personal account of AIDS and poverty, as well as a biting satire of the sympathetic but ineffectual liberal. This work clearly came from a place of deep love for place and community, as well as grief at seeing that community violently upturned, and that emotion bleeds through the page. 

I also appreciated the commentary on the misogyny gay women face, both within the community, and without. From the lesbian section of the porn shop being nothing more than a neglected, outdated corner, to lesbians being relied upon to organize events and direct action while not being the ones to take center stage, to women with AIDS being denied experimental treatment, the injustice was plain to see.

As for claims that the musical RENT plagiarized this work, I can see no evidence of that other than they are both about poverty and AIDS in New York. Thematically, they have several similarities, but one cannot copywrite a theme, and the author's assertion that characters and plot points were lifted wholesale from her work simply does not hold water with any good faith analysis, not to mention a marked difference in tone, and putting that claim in the official summary of the book is downright unprofessional.

Overall, this book accomplishes the goal it was set to fulfil, but was not personally enjoyable to me.