The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
As other readers have mentioned this book is more like two books. The popular science fiction portion of the book deals with the study of the HeLa cell lines named for the woman whom they were taken from, Henrietta Lacks. The other portion of the book is the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family which really highlights many of the injustices towards black Americans particularly in the realm of science and medicine. Both stories also lead into conversations about the evolving law regarding consent and control over one's genetic information and material.
The first story about the scientific research on HeLa is bazonkers (doesn't matter that bazonkers is not a word, something like that is needed for emphasis). I'm usually pretty up-to-date on what's going on in Science but I definitely missed some of the stranger HeLa cell research.
The second story about the family is touching, upsetting, and angering. Although at times this part feels a bit meandering with an examination of a large family. I was mostly interested in the story of her daughter Deborah probably because she's the person Skloot got to know the best.
The status of our rights regarding our genetic material is both frightening and frustrating.
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