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booksjessreads's review against another edition
5.0
What. A. Book. This is genuinely one of my favourite books ever. This book tells the life story of Henrietta Lacks (aka HeLa) who's 'Immortal cancer cells' were used to test treatments for polio, helped discover HIV, and helped us find out that transplanted organs are rejected in a new body by the immune system and not because of different DNA. Her cells still live today.
Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black woman with 5 children when she died from cervical cancer. Howard Jones, her doctor, took a sample of her cancer without her knowledge or consent and shipped it off to a lab where it kept growing and growing. Researchers took advantage of this, but kept Henrietta's family in the dark about medical research taking place because of her.
Rebecca Skloot tells this story so amazingly. Half of the book is Skloot telling us how she acquired the information about Henrietta, and the other half is telling us about Henrietta's life, all combined to make the book. Skloot does the story justice, showing the hardship the family faced in light of all the secrets kept from them. She talks about the ethics of taking cells without consent, the crippling racism the family faced in 1950s America, and centre's the voices of the family and Henrietta, rather than imposing her own narrative throughout the story.
A side note that half of the proceeds of the book go to Henrietta's family. The family didn't receive a single penny of the medical research or sales of Henrietta's cells, so if you ever get a chance to read the book, I encourage you to buy it (if you didn't need encouraging enough!)
Honestly such an incredible read and certainly one of my absolute favourites this year!
Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black woman with 5 children when she died from cervical cancer. Howard Jones, her doctor, took a sample of her cancer without her knowledge or consent and shipped it off to a lab where it kept growing and growing. Researchers took advantage of this, but kept Henrietta's family in the dark about medical research taking place because of her.
Rebecca Skloot tells this story so amazingly. Half of the book is Skloot telling us how she acquired the information about Henrietta, and the other half is telling us about Henrietta's life, all combined to make the book. Skloot does the story justice, showing the hardship the family faced in light of all the secrets kept from them. She talks about the ethics of taking cells without consent, the crippling racism the family faced in 1950s America, and centre's the voices of the family and Henrietta, rather than imposing her own narrative throughout the story.
A side note that half of the proceeds of the book go to Henrietta's family. The family didn't receive a single penny of the medical research or sales of Henrietta's cells, so if you ever get a chance to read the book, I encourage you to buy it (if you didn't need encouraging enough!)
Honestly such an incredible read and certainly one of my absolute favourites this year!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Medical content, Medical trauma, Cancer, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Incest, and Panic attacks/disorders
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