A review by mhinnen
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

This was a really well written and researched book about the life of Henrietta Lacks. So many profited from her cells and lives have been saved, yet her family can't afford medical care. I appreciated the care and respect that Skloot took to tell the story of the family, their memories of their wife and mother, and the very traumatic and difficult life that they led. Holding Henrietta at the center of the story and then weaving in the scientific, societal, and medical stories, honored who she was as a human being and honored the voice of her daughter as the author gained her trust. It also did not shy away from the racist institutional practices in the medical and research fields. The week that I was reading it, the family reached a settlement agreement with one of the companies who profited from Hela cells.