At Risk by Alice HoffmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Have you ever gone back to reread a book that you were first introduced to, and found that it still holds up? Then you'll know how I felt upon rereading At Risk, by Alice Hoffman.
Written during the 1980s, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, the book follows Amanda Farrell, an 11-year-old gymnast who dreams of being a pupil of Bela Karolyi. Her parents, Ivan, a scientist, and Polly, a photographer, take Amanda to her meets, bringing along her eight-year-old brother Charlie, whose fascination with dinosaurs (and science, in general) rivals Amanda's love of gymnastics.
The book opens with Polly getting ready to bring the children to one of Amanda's meets, as Ivan heads for work. Amanda has been fighting what her parents thought was a summer cold that lasted a little too long. It is after the meet when Polly goes to find Amanda that she and Ivan realize that it might be more than just a cold. In fact, it turns out to be AIDS, picked up from a blood transfusion during an appendectomy, several years earlier.
The book follows the family's first few months of Amanda's illness, and the small New England town's dealings with the family.
While science has advanced to where people living with HIV/AIDS are able to live a longer, more productive life, the book shows how the disease affected patients during the 1980s, letting the reader see that no one "deserves" the disease.
For anyone who has never read the book, or hasn't read it in years, Alice Hoffman's At Risk is well worth the read.
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