Unfortunately, the book was very disappointing and frustrating. It's very disjointed and focuses on superficialities, so that it was hard to get a senUnfortunately, the book was very disappointing and frustrating. It's very disjointed and focuses on superficialities, so that it was hard to get a sense of the work that she actually does do. She focuses on name dropping famous people; describing the endless tours of the sanitation issues at people's houses with various politicians (and I mean endless, it's a huge part of the book and she describes them in detail over and over and over), UN officials, etc; and speeches she'd made....but in between meeting famous people and speeches, what is happening and what's she doing? I literally don't know because she doesn't describe the actual day to day work that she does with these groups. She talks about how some of these people have been on her tours for years--which kind of makes it feel like poverty tourism? Like what are they actually doing for these people other than opening up their shame and trauma to a bunch of strangers for what she says is years? Or she'll drop the name of an organization and say she's a member and talk about a conference, but frequently doesn't actually describe what the organization does, what her role in it is, or how she got involved. The last speech she quotes does have maybe two or three steps for leaders to address sanitation issues, but frankly, that's about as far as her discussion ever goes with solutions. She never really goes into what's worked and what hasn't. Since her descriptions of even her own organizations is so nebulous, she certainly doesn't even put them forward as places to support, or talk about things the average reader could do to to help or bring awareness....more
It was interesting and informative, but I think because of current events, it took forever to read. I couldn't read straight through, had to alternateIt was interesting and informative, but I think because of current events, it took forever to read. I couldn't read straight through, had to alternate between this and switching over to other books. The one thing I found a little frustrating was in the beginning chapters on ebola, where he jumps around a lot in the timeline of the virus, often without giving the years of when the outbreaks were occurring. So it was difficult to get a sense of how the virus spread and whether lethality was worse or better in later outbreaks compared to earlier ones. He doesn't do that with his discussion of other viruses, so I'm not sure why he did that there. ...more
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