it pains me to rate this book so low because i really had high hopes for it and i think that the book does several things well. i also believe that the intent behind writing the book and the issues that the book highlights are incredibly important and pertinent to our daily lives. however, the things it does poorly loomed over everything else for me during my reading experience.

first, it reads well for a book targeted at a general audience, and i think it does a decent job explaining things like social determinants of health and structural violence in layman's terms. i can see a lot of people being able to read this and enjoy it, which is a good thing in the nonfiction genre. the author directly addresses classism and racism as the major roots of many healthcare problems and ties it to her main theory of weathering, which she describes as the physiological effects of living in marginalized communities. i also think that one of the last chapters in the book, focusing on public health sciences and practices, was a strong chapter, which makes sense given the author's background as a public health professor at the university of michigan.

yet, this book struggles greatly from an organizational problem. i found that the book often jumped back and forth between certain topics without ever resolving one or the other, and the chapters felt disjointed. a lot of the chapters could have been condensed and reorganized into a more cohesive book. for example, in part 2 when the author discusses solutions to address weathering, she brings up having more doulas at birth. then, she moves on to discuss situational cues, counternarratives, and media representation before discussing what she terms as "the fourth trimester of pregnancy" (essentially supporting mothers after childbirth). why wasn't this discussed with the doulas? why leave out one aspect of maternal health 30 pages after you initially bring it up in the solutions section and then sandwich it with unrelated topics?

she does something similar in the social policy chapter, where she includes a section on the vilification of teen mothers. why was this information not included in the chapter, one hundred pages back, on teen mothers, maternal health and black families? i would've forgiven this had the author specifically dissected the social policies and legislation that contributed to these weathering effects, but instead, the social policy chapter ended up being disparate descriptions and anecdotes that could've been better served elsewhere in the book.

if anything, the social policy chapter could've been funneled into the second half, which is titled "the way forward." this is where we could've analyzed the previous chapters through the lens of social policy and figure out what worked vs what didn't work. instead, i also found part 2 to be disorganized and honestly frustrating at some points. some of the things the author advocates for seem like individual solutions to a systemic problem. for example, she recommends removing gendered and racialized posters from classrooms, doing affirmations, and hosting intergroup exchanges. the amount of text dedicated to these individual solutions pales in comparison to the later sections on legislation and government, which would actually address these problems at an institutional level. 

she also coins this term called "jedi public health" (yes, the jedis from star wars), abbreviates it to JPH, and then uses the abbreviation for the rest of the section in part 2. coining this term felt utterly unnecessary; why not just call it "collaborative public health" since that's what it essentially means? coming up with new terms and abbreviating them is typical for academia, but given that this is a book targeted towards the general audience, i felt like this obscured the meaning and the main point. 

because of this, i truly cannot rate this book higher than 2 stars and i'm left feeling disappointed at the end of it all.

I’ve been recommending this book to everyone I can. It’s a must read, and I very much need it to blow up on all those Anti-Racist reading lists.

Crucial, eye-opening, poignant, and hopeful as the author provides concrete solutions.

I wouldn’t have picked up this book on my own - it was selected for a professional book club - but I’m really glad I read it. Geronimus’ work is extraordinarily illuminating and paradigm-shifting, positing “health and aging have more to do with how society treats us than how well we take care of ourselves”. 

I can see how it’s important for any education or healthcare professional to read this, but I honestly think everyone should be aware of this information. We had some great discussions within our workplace and I hope we continue the conversations and take action to impact meaningful holistic change. As the book says - all our fates are linked. 

This is a good book and like the research it covers is important but it’s written so dryly that I couldn’t finish it 

As a public health professional, I will be recommending this to many others in the public health and medicine field. I think this should be a required reading for healthcare professionals. The author does a great job of delving into the effects of systemic oppression on the physical and mental health of underrepresented people. We know that oppression leads to shortened lives, and this book does a good job of balancing the social aspect with the scientific aspect. If you work in health or healthcare, work with underrepresented groups, and/or are a minority yourself, this is a great read.