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

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

1.5

-It could’ve been half the length, it was repetitive and not very enticing.

-The family history didn’t add much to the substance outside of showing that they were an uneducated family stuck in cyclical poverty and abuse, which on its own doesn’t really add much to the story. 

-It was weird to me that a white person chose to write this book and stated she had a “close relationship” with Deborah, but also stated Deborah never read it and neither did the family and that most of them can’t read, so she’d read things to Deborah before her passing.. but she could’ve said anything she wanted to Deborah and to the reader. 

-Deborah’s behaviors and ending of her life took up more pages than it needed to. 

-I read a lot of reviews about people being upset that the book is about her immortal life, though it was her cells that killed her. However, I do think this was explained well in the book because the family believes parts of Henrietta continue to live and grow and save lives, and that’s what matters. 

-The family believes they should be given financial payment for Henrietta’s cells, but it was her husband who gave her the cancer in the first place. 

-Zakariyya’s character was ridiculous and it felt as though the author was trying to make the reader have sympathy for him because he found god in prison and has become a new man with a new name. 

-This book felt exploitative of the family’s secrets and traumas rather than on the multiplying cells that lead to saving lives through education.