I listened to the audiobook, and thoroughly enjoyed the author's narration. This book is partly a historical and scientific exploration of the disease of tuberculosis as well as the inclusion of Henry's specific story as a patient, and that storyline provides structure to the book. Overall I appreciated the inclusion of Henry as a through line and a driving "plot", as well as a method to both emotionally pull at the reader and also to describe life as an individual TB patient and an example of the disease course. As well as to give a real life example of treatment done in a specific place, Sierra Leone in this case.

I learned a lot throughout this whole book, it was super interesting to learn about the history of tuberculosis across multiple cultures and geographical locations, as well as the overall discussion about the romanticization of the disease in the European and American history. Retrospectively I have encountered a lot of media where I hadn't even realized that TB was the element that was being referenced, especially when there were associations with artists and almost a glorification of how beauty is so intrinsically tied with this illness. It was wild to learn more about how to tuberculosis has been an influence on health and beauty standards for centuries.

Learning about how we as humans have had the knowledge on how to defeat and eradicate this disease and yet it's still ravages so many lives was absolutely infuriating and definitely a call to action. The inclusion of so much stark, obvious cold-heartedness associated with how everything revolves around capitalism and monetary incentive was enraging and also made me want to cry. Especially with the discussions about the inherent classism and racism across history and still today, as well as current and historical Healthcare inequalities that make tuberculosis now associated with poverty and specific poorer countries. "The disease is where the cure is not."

I appreciated some of the discussions surrounding: what is a natural versus unnatural life and death and the use of medicines; how being ill can 'other' someone and how people who are well can become ill and then have to be confronted with such a status change; the ridiculous stigma and morality that we tie to illness. There were so many great quotes that really had me thinking throughout this whole book. Words that I frequently saw come up in other reviews include: accessible, interesting, engaging, educational, moving. This is definitely one I will want to reread in the future with my highlighter ready!

This book was perfectly fine, but not really memorable for me. There was no plot or real through line, this was more a collection of comics that were related to the topic of gender and relationships. In fact a huge chunk of this book was a question and answer section, where the author had solicited questions online and then was using this book to respond, it almost felt like this book was supposed to be supplemental materials to a movie that was mentioned multiple times. I in so many ways am nothing like this author, I've never experienced gender questioning, am not in an LGBT relationship, I'm not Japanese nor as old as this author-- this made me struggle to be very invested, perhaps a little bit better structure to the book or different composition could have changed that.

I saw a couple of comments across other reviews being somewhat disappointed about the disconnected and scattered way that the book is structured, and I agree with one review I read that talked about how some of the pages made up of four panels almost felt unfinished. I also saw a few comments that were cringing over the author's partner/ their age gap relationship.