Rebecca Skloot

Well-spoken and a talent for piecing a story together for optimum comprehension, Rebecca Skloot does a remarkable job of immersing the reader in the fears and joys of Debra Lacks and her siblings, as she relates the story of their mother, Henrietta Lacks, who, in 1951, when dying of cancer--complicated by syphilis, provided the gift of her cancer cells, which have lived on to provide a window into the mysterious biological mechanisms of life itself. If you thought biology was a bit too cold and scientific a subject, devoid of villains or heroes, think again. Depending on where I was, I alternated formats on this book, reading it both as an e-book and an audio. Each has its special benefits. Cassandra Campbell is a fabulous reader, and you really don’t want to miss the concluding author interview on the audio, but the photos of the characters in the print version should not be missed either.
… (lisätietoja)

Good science writing. This book raises lots of questions about medical research and profits, race, poverty, education and ethical issues involving tissue and cell ownership.

The beginning of the book was a lot more interesting to me than the end. Part one concentrates more on Henrietta's cancer and diagnosis whereas the end of the book involves the author and Henrietta's family. The author is persistent and fearless in her pursuit of information for the book. Unfortunately the way the family was described made them appear unsympathetic or as one reviewer said "insufferable."

I do wish the author had stressed right from the start that the HeLa cells "taken without her knowledge" were cancer cells. The Drs. did take healthy tissue too but those cells did not survive.

I really like the quote the author used by Elie Wiesel. "We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph."… (lisätietoja)