Reviews

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox

anna8ananas's review

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5.0

Amazing life story of a fascinating woman.

jfields62's review against another edition

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4.0

When I would get stressed about the MCAT, I would read this. She was the unsung hero of Genetics. We always learned that Watson and Crick stole her work and she always deserved the Nobel Prize. It was nice seeing a more human side to her in this account. She was incredible and gone too soon.

ryanneliza's review

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3.0

Frankly, I couldn’t bring myself to finish this one. I was not a fan of the writing style and found the text a bit boring and drawn out. I read enough to get the gist and then supplemented with other biographical texts.

sagittariusreads_'s review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

mjfmjfmjf's review

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4.0

The book was a good one. The life it portrayed a great one. Definitely a story I had not heard. And the bits of the story I had heard had not come through true. Not a simple or easy read. This was a fairly in depth biography for someone clearly focused on specific pieces of a life. Because of Rosalind's letters and her friends, we get more a picture of who she really was then we might have. It does not portray her as perfect or even-tempered. It portrays her as a talented capable scientist strongly able of doing published work, died way too young and unknown.

daphneembry's review

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informative slow-paced

3.75

michaelmarshall's review

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4.0

Excellent biography of the famous scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA. It does a really good job of revealing the real person behind all the mythmaking and rhetoric. The only flaw is that the descriptions of the chemistry might not be terribly clear to anyone who isn't already fairly well-acquainted with macromolecules etc.

janethewriter's review

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5.0

Before finding this book by accident, I had little idea about Rosalind Franklin -- who she was, what she accomplished, or how she was robbed of the credit she deserved for her work at the time by the very men and fellow scientists who benefitted most from it -- and went on to win the Nobel Prize, thanks, in part, to Photo 51.

An entirely different facet of her life intrigued me, too. Her family's Jewish history and a relative's role in British-ruled Palestine, as well as the possibility that she carried a BRCA mutation, which may have contributed to her death from ovarian cancer at age 38, were fascinating aspects of her life -- especially to a fellow BRCA mutation carrier.

I recently found a second book about her, "My Sister Rosalind Franklin: A Family Memoir," written by her younger sister, Jenifer Glynn, and I look forward to reading that one as well.

kristasorocks's review

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informative sad slow-paced

2.5

melindagallagher's review

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4.0

I learned so much about Rosalind Franklin. As usual, I enjoyed learning about Rosalind and her life. I would get bogged down in the science descriptions, but I am so glad I read it! She was a remarkable young lady who died too young!