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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
Excellent amalgam of biography, social commentary and science.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Wonderful book. If you want to learn about how genetic research was primarily built on the back of one black poor woman, if you want to learn about inequalities and the mindset of the research community, if you are a doctor, patient, or healthcare worker and wonder about how life-saving medical advances were made over the past fifty years, this is the book for you. Absolutely astounding.
I started this book with low expectations, thinking it would not be a “page-turner”. I was wrong! As I read, I really became invested in the cast of the book! A very wide eye opener and insight into modern medicine and how it became what it is today!
I really liked this book, but it was a bit too scientific for my taste at times.
As a Medical Biotechnology student I was so excited to learn about the story of Henrietta Lacks and I hope more people read this and learn about the woman behind HeLa cells and her family.
I need to know what the author paid the family in compensation and it’s never made clear…I feel like the whole book is questioning whether taking the cells was exploitation as the family didn’t get any information or compensation, and I’m left feeling uneasy as the story has now been taken and sold too…right? Or am I missing something??
But a well written and interesting book if we don’t go too meta!
But a well written and interesting book if we don’t go too meta!
informative
reflective
medium-paced
So, so good! One of the best works of non-fiction I’ve ever read and one of the best written books I’ve read period. This book not only tells the story of Henrietta Lacks and her still-living cells but also the story Henrietta’s family and the racist history of medical and scientific research and raises a lot of important ethical questions. I really felt like the author genuinely cared about Henrietta and her family and honored them with this book. She has a knack for storytelling and being able to weave together several different stories at once. I can’t recommend this book enough!
Listened to the audiobook and found it a bit disorganised - sometimes lost track of timelines and who was who (probably easier to follow in print). But the content itself had me hooked, which kept me going.
It’s shocking to learn how someone so instrumental to science went without credit for so long. One of those books that really drives home how recent (and how real) these medical atrocities were. Eye-opening and important.
It’s shocking to learn how someone so instrumental to science went without credit for so long. One of those books that really drives home how recent (and how real) these medical atrocities were. Eye-opening and important.