At Risk

One of the early AIDS-related novels, this work is not only powerful and important, but beautifully conceived and written. Hoffman tackles a narrative that addresses the effects of disease on an American family in a way that paints a powerful story in itself, while still bringing into account the particular questions and worries that arise with AIDS cases. Hoffman's work here is necessary and serious, but the humor and beauty she finds a way to include are the aspects that make this book so striking. Hoffman didn't write a novel about AIDS, as so many authors have--she wrote a surprisingly uplifting story about a young vibrant girl and her family facing the unfairness and the beauty of life. Yes, this is a serious book, and difficult to show more take---it is also absolutely worth your time in all respects, and has everything you could hope for in a novel. show less

In this era of a global pandemic, I found a resonance with this book about the AIDS epidemic. In this case, the story focuses on one family and the effect of an AIDS diagnosis when their eleven-year-old daughter, a budding gymnastic star, is diagnosed with AIDS due to a blood transfusion. Mother, father, and brother are all deeply impacted as well as the other townsfolk and family. This is in the early days of AIDS when there was still a lot of misinformation and fear (much like today with Covid-19).
Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors, so I was happy to find a book of hers that I'd missed reading. The story is both poignant and infuriating as new bonds are forged and old friendships lost. As I watch my fellow American citizens show more try to deal with the current pandemic, I recall how poorly our government assisted in the AIDS crisis and how helpless many medical people felt in dealing with their patients, and how fear overrode common sense for many people.
This book is a small but well-written time capsule that reminds one how everything goes around, very apropos for our times. show less

I found this at a book sale years ago, now getting around to it. It's a bit dated now... as AIDS must have been much more terrifying when this book was published in 1988. Happily science has now found treatments for AIDS. Now there are medications -- not to downplay the disease AT ALL. Yay science! In the book, a family is dealing with their eleven year old daughter that has been diagnosed with AIDS. So it's a picture of what was happening with the disease in 1988. Hoffman handles the narrative well with realism for the time. It's a quick read.

In a lovely old house near the coast of Massachusetts, the Farrells go through the routines of a typical August morning. Eight-year-old Charlie, a junior biologist and dinosaur expert, tries to collect one of his insect specimens. His sister, Amanda, a talented gymnast who at eleven years old is already saving her money to try out for the Olympics, prepares for her last meet of the summer. Ivan, their absent-minded father, is involved with his work as an astronomer. Out in the garden, his wife, Polly, wonders how she can trick her children into eating more zucchini.

They are a family as unique and ordinary as any other, but their world will soon be shattered when Amanda is diagnosed with the disease that has been making headlines show more lately: AIDS. The new and still-mysterious ailment scares them—and their friends and neighbors as well. In an instant, everything that gave their lives meaning is ripped away, and the intimacy that once came so naturally vanishes. Too overcome with grief to turn to each other, Ivan and Polly seek solace elsewhere. Charlie is abandoned by his best friend and, for long stretches at a time, forgotten by his parents. Amanda, who holds on to her dreams so tightly, must somehow find a way to let go.

Torn apart by the prospect of their loss, Polly, Ivan, and Charlie must find the courage to come back together again—for Amanda’s sake and for their own. At Risk is an exquisite book about true sorrow and even truer devotion. show less

Like all of Ms Hoffman's books, this is a winner, the story of a family struggling with the terminal illness of a child. Eleven year old Amanda, contracts the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion, given five years prior. Written in 1988, at a time when AIDS was a speedy death verdict, the book also chronicles the intolerance and prejudice such families endured. Amanda wants to stay in school but many parents don't want her there.
The book is far superior to Jodi Picault's "My Sister's Keeper" and I highly recommend it .

Polly and Ivan Farrell are a nice, small-town Massachusetts family, with two kids, Amanda, eleven, an aspiring gymnast, and Charlie, eight, a bright boy interested in science. Their lives change dramatically when Amanda is suddenly diagnosed with AIDS, the result of a blood transfusion five years earlier when Amanda had her appendix removed. The family's attempts to come to terms with Amanda's condition create a ripple effect through Polly's parents, Amanda's gym coach and his daughter Jessie (Amanda's best friend), Charlie's best fried, Polly's business partner, a middle-aged woman with possible psychic ability, the school principal, an HIV hotline worker, and the Farrell's family doctor and his wife. The narrative switches so show more frequently among the characters that the novel is far more concerned with the coping and mutual support of a community than that of any individual. Although the subject matter is unhappy, the tone is not just a tearjerking downer. Amidst the grief and fear, Hoffman manages to highlight positive relationships and convictions that strengthen the characters during Amanda's illness. show less

AIDS: a difficult subject but covered gently and with love, written when AIDS was a death sentence and when the fear was palpable - well written, worth reading, and thankfully already dated (at least in 1st world countries)