I hated the inclusion of the dialogue and the characters thoughts. How the hell would she know?

1.5 stars:
I was very interested in reading this book because I enjoy reading narratives involving medical history. I hoped that this book would be akin to Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map, BUT it wasn't like that at all except that both were about diseases.

I expected this book to be written as a history book, but as many other reviewers have noted it's written much more like historical fiction. Not only that, but the author uses the most expansive language possible to describe the sequence of events possible. It just reminded me of reading A Tale of Two Cities in high school.

Great read. Wish there had been a bit more about Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu.

So good. I loved the way she paired history and biology with story here!

I wanted to read this book to prepare for Outlander that will be on Starz in August. I loved the book and the whole series in fact. I did not finish the book, which isnt a bad thing. The story was based on two separate people/families and their learning about smallpox. I learned alot about medicine in the 1700's and I am glad that i read what i did.

I appreciate what Ms. Carrell was trying to do, but she failed. Miserably. This is a nonfiction book, not a novel. I have no problem with adding some flare or even acting like she knew how the people would've felt and how they acted. What I cannot get behind was the ridiculous amount of purple prose.

Paragraphs like this:

" There they emerged, tight lipped, the captain turning heads with his silver-laced, cockaded hat gripped firmly in white-gloved hands, his finely tailored blue coat fastened with gilt buttons above the clean lines of white breeches and gray hose, his black wig tied neatly with a cow, the glean of his sword competing with the flash of immense silver buckles on his shoes". This much description is unneeded. Even in a high fantasy novel.

I originally gave the book 100 pages. It got better around page 80 (when Lady Montague went to Turkey). Then it was mostly bad with a few good parts until page 136. I gave up. I couldn't understand why she'd needed to spend 10 or so pages about the 12 year old working on a ship.


side note: Over 20 pages were spent talking about Lady Montague's relationship with her husband.

This one's hard to rate, because most of this book was boring and I had to read this book for class but, Zabdiel Boylston was a super fun character. His parts were the only non-boring parts. I really liked reading about his inner struggle as he navigated the beginnings of inoculation in Boston. The author did a nice job fleshing out his story and the relationship with his wife and kids.

The section where Lady Mary goes to Constantinople to have her son inoculated was interesting.

Zabiboi's parts 5 Stars
Lady Mary 3 Stars
Everything Else 1 Star
Average Star Rating: 3

I tried and tried but I just could never get into this book. It should have been interesting but it just dragged.

A bit slow but fascinating story about two people willing to try something new in order to protect their family from smallpox, and how the ended up saving hundreds