I was appalled and inspired by the things I learned in this book. I am a young white man in the United States, so tuberculosis and segregation are things that have been taught to me as things "of the past." This book drove home the intergenerational impact of segregation and the difficulties Black people faced during integration. It was visceral and poignant. As good stories do, it allowed me to more easily empathize with the women of the history and so I learned their stories better. 
The book also showed the raw truth of the final decades of tuberculosis in the United States. It is gruesome at times, but not gory. The author walks the line between the medical details and the human emotions of the situation that keeps things from being too technica or too gross.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in civil rights history in the US or medical history or communicable disease. Tuberculosis may not kill people in the US anymore, but it kills millions of people around the world every year and many of their deaths are preventable by drugs that they don't have access to for one reason or another.