Reviews tagging 'Incest'

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

71 reviews

kennedybullen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Racial slurs, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racism, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Drug use, and Child abuse

Minor: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Incest, and Suicide

creationwing's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

I wasn't a huge fan of the attempts at Chinese and Austrian accents by the audiobook reader. It felt off in a book with themes so closely tied to facing racism. It didn't help that they weren't very well done, either.

There were moments when the book seemed a little too voyeuristic for my taste; I'm not sure that all the details included were necessary for me to learn about this historic figure, her family's struggles, and have understanding of the suffering and unjustice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Murder, Child death, Violence, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Classism, Body horror, Cancer, Medical trauma, Racism, and Confinement

Moderate: Vomit, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Self harm, Pedophilia, Rape, Death of parent, Slavery, and Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Infidelity, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Incest, Drug abuse, and Deadnaming

There are detailed descriptions of the autopsies of

Henrietta and her daughter Elsie

, which may be disturbing to some people. I certainly had to pause the audiobook to mentally prepare myself.

jcstokes95's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

3.5

If you are currently in a multi-year pandemic situation where medical advice feels slippery and the policy even slipperier, I would not advise reading this. Because, it will make you feel even more suspicious of doctors. I love science, super glad to have it, doctors and nurses save lives. But also, I have to admit, I do not always trust them. I live in a body that is often overlooked by the medical profession. And while I immensely respect medical professionals, I do not believe in following anything blindly. And man, does this book lay out every potential horror that can happen if you are unable to make educated choices about your health due to racism, classism, etc. 

Truly, this book is horror after horror. But I feel like I gained an even clearer understanding of the racial bias in the medical system. And the incredible importance of patient consent, which still seems to be an issue in regards to tissue ownership. Skloot does a very good job giving you digestible chunks of medical history. I found the portions about the Lacks family very hard to read. This book was very slow for me because there is only so much sexual abuse, racism, incest, death, etc. that I could take at a time. But I appreciate that Skloot doesn't seem to shy away from the hard truths about the family. Like them or not though, every person has a right to consent and every family has a right to privacy in their medical dealings. Neither of these was given to this family. 

The part in this book that wavers for me is the last portion. I don't mind Skloot inserting herself into the narrative, but I found a lot of the focus on Deborah's health to be difficult to read, and not additive. I also do think there are some weird ethical implications of taking a person that fragile and pushing them to do traumatic work. Particularly when you are White and will profit directly, and they are Black and will not. But, the Lacks family seems to trust her and I am glad in some way they felt they had a champion to tell the story for them. A mixed bag and a hard read, but I feel I learned something new in every part.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Incest, Racism, Mental illness, Medical content, Death, and Cancer

academicanko's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Henrietta Lacks is a name unknown to most, however, she may be the most important women to medical science of all time. She was a black woman living in the south in America. Henrietta Lacks had cancer tissue cultures taken from her without her consent and those cells became the first ever immortal cells. 

She later died after those cultures were taken.

Her cells are used to create vaccines and medicines to this day. They were even use to help develop the corona virus vaccines. However, her family has not seen a cent of this money. This book goes over the author and her interactions with the family and the research the cells have supported. She mostly speaks with the youngest daughter, Deborah Lacks. Deborah did not know much about her mother and her older sister, Elsie. This family's plight and trauma is vast. They have been harassed and abused. They have a plethora of health concerns but cannot afford insurance. I cried throughout this book just thinking about their circumstances. 

This books opens the conversation to consent and much more. What does research allow and does my autonomous rights cover cells? Now technology is advanced enough to understand DNA. Is it really okay to have my DNA abused in ways I have no control? Who should get compensation? Hasn't commercialization of pharmaceuticals hindered science more than helped it? America has always had a horrible situation when it comes to health care and insurance. It is one of the reasons I live abroad. 

When doing more research on this book, I have noticed that many criticize the author for her way of approaching the family. I later learned that this book has challenged to be banned from some states. I have also found that the remaining family did not like the way the family was portrayed in the book. I like to believe that the author had gotten the consent of Deborah when planning this book and that the things she included were important to her as a descendent of Henrietta. I like to think and I really hope that the authors intentions were true. I think this story is very important and one that must be more widely known. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Incest, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Mental illness

larkiereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

What a book. What an incredible story, told brilliantly. I'd heard of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells before, but I'm not a biologist, and the scope of this book always seemed intimidating. However, Skloot's writing is fascinating and accessible, and every time I found myself asking more questions on a topic and thinking of doing some Googling for clarification, she would swoop in and answer my questions nearly and concisely. 

This book reads like a mystery, and although it never had me quite on the edge of my seat, I kept wanting to return to it to find out what happened next. She alternates between science history (and simple explanations of the science itself) and biography, discussing not only Henrietta's life and the advancements made with HeLa cells, but also her own search for information. The book moves along fairly quickly, and even though Rebecca is an active participant, she never centers herself and her reporting over the Lacks family and their experiences. She doesn't hold back, good or bad (or very very bad), and clearly establishes that this book is a collaboration. 

I could go into the minutiae of everything this book did well, but I'm sure there are more in depth reviews out there that would do a better job. I want to close this review by saying that everyone should read this book. We owe so much of our medical advancements in the last 60 years to Henrietta Lacks, and there is ongoing debate about informed consent in tissue research and gene copyrights that affect us all. On top of that, I feel like I understand more about medical research because I've read it. And it was (mostly) fun to read! The writing and craft in this book are absolute perfection. Please give it a try.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Incest

jayisreading's review against another edition

emotional informative medium-paced

3.75

A few days after finishing this book, I’m still struggling to work out how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I’m incredibly grateful that I got to learn so much about Henrietta Lacks, HeLa, as well as the circumstances and history surrounding Lacks and her cells. I don’t venture into science-related books very often, but this one was engaging. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something exploitative about the book, even if Skloot received consent from the Lacks family and everything. I don’t know if it was the way she inserted herself into this narrative or what, but something felt off. I also can’t help but wonder how much financial compensation the Lacks family received for their contributions to this book, as well as from the movie that was made a few years later. From what I’ve gathered on Skloot’s website, it seems like they have, but again, how much?

I’ve been thinking about a quote from the book that really highlights the frustration one may feel about the Lacks family’s situation: “She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?“ I felt so much anger reading this book, not so much because of the topic, but because of the injustices that Henrietta Lacks, her family and, really, the Black community have faced. There’s a lot in this book to digest— Despite my concerns, I think there’s a lot of important information that makes this book worth reading in the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racism, Terminal illness, and Grief

Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Panic attacks/disorders, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Incest

abookandaspotoftea's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Death, and Cancer

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Slavery, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Incest, Grief, and Emotional abuse

becca_w_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Incest, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Torture, Violence, and Stalking

Moderate: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Self harm, and Vomit

Minor: Car accident, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Excrement, Gun violence, Infertility, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, and Suicidal thoughts

olivea21db's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Ableism, Murder, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Racism

Minor: Incest

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! 

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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