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pbraue13's review against another edition
4.0
I never knew much about Harvey Milk beyond the fact that he was the first out gay politician, but reading this book has made me appreciate him and mourn for what could have been. Shilts give you an inside look into his internal and personal life outside of politics and shows you how he was the person the LGBT community needed at the time and perhaps even more so now, as the same bigotry and hate still exists.
baydenfraley's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
So well written! Has the pace and storytelling of historical fiction while providing important historical context. Highly recommend if you know the basic story of Harvey Milk but want a more in depth look at his life and the politics of San Fransisco in the 1970s.
noonanjohnc's review
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Murder
larryerick's review
4.0
Where do I start in talking about this book? There is so much to discuss, but I will limit myself. First, this is nominally a biography of Harvey Milk, and it does a fine job of it, but it is also, equally, a history of the gay rights movement and a history of San Francisco politics. For those tasks, the author does just as well, sometimes not even mentioning Harvey Milk for entire chapters. For the first fifteen chapters, the book sets the stage for reaching what the majority of people know about Harvey Milk, namely his death and the trial of his killer. While that early part of the book is very good and well worth reading in its own right, the remaining chapters are some of the best and most interesting reporting I have ever written, being all the more vivid because of the foundation that the author laid down earlier. I highly suspect that there is detail included of which even San Franciscans of the time are not aware. The author says as much at the end of his book. There was much to surprise me about Milk and about San Francisco politics. I have been concurrently reading yet another book about the segregationist American Deep South, a period of time in which whites were seldom arrested and very rarely convicted of crimes against blacks. This book provides ample evidence that gays have suffered a similar fate. In fact, I am certain that there are those who will believe this entire book is mere fiction, inspired by, if not actually written by the devil. Rational people will know otherwise.
carlylottsofbookz's review
3.0
I didn't read the book until after I had watched the movie, and it was good to know a little bit more about the people in Milk's life--as well as the acknowledgement of some of Milk's less than admirable qualities.
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high note. (I cried both times when watching it...) But this book goes further into the aftermath of San Francisco, and the atrocities that were once forgotten for homosexuals were reinstated.
At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high note. (I cried both times when watching it...) But this book goes further into the aftermath of San Francisco, and the atrocities that were once forgotten for homosexuals were reinstated.
At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
abbymorr11's review against another edition
not rating it because i read it for class
brnycx's review against another edition
5.0
i've been meaning to read this book for years. as i was off to san francisco a few weeks ago, i thought it'd be the perfect time to finally get to it.
this is a really fantastic book. agreed, it's not *perfectly* written but i found it refreshing in its presentation of harvey milk as a fully-rounded person, warts and all. he doesn't come across as some matyr saint - in the book he's ambitious, a little condescending, pretty cruel to his many lovers, often rather crude (and a little creepy), but he was still an inspiration and his story and many speeches about hope left me with a lump in my throat. with eyes on the mayorship (and possibly even further) who knows he what he would have managed if he hadn't been so cowardly assassinated. as a gay man, even one living half a world away, i owe him a lot.
this is a really fantastic book. agreed, it's not *perfectly* written but i found it refreshing in its presentation of harvey milk as a fully-rounded person, warts and all. he doesn't come across as some matyr saint - in the book he's ambitious, a little condescending, pretty cruel to his many lovers, often rather crude (and a little creepy), but he was still an inspiration and his story and many speeches about hope left me with a lump in my throat. with eyes on the mayorship (and possibly even further) who knows he what he would have managed if he hadn't been so cowardly assassinated. as a gay man, even one living half a world away, i owe him a lot.
talile's review against another edition
5.0
Very good reading. Goes back to Milk's less known past before San Francisco and uses the great journalistic style of writing.