The Book Addict Reviews: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Science, Biography
Order Online: Amazon.com  
Author Info: Goodreads | Website
Rating: 4 stars   
Bought this book after reading a library copy.  

In A Nutshell:  
HeLa cells have been used to create drugs, research DNA, and many other scientific discoveries since the 1950s.  However, very few people knew much about Henrietta Lacks, the woman behind these cells.  Henrietta Lacks is one of the unsung heroes of scientific research, until Rebecca Skloot took up the challenge to tell Henrietta's story.  But this book is not only her story--it is the story of her family, of the researchers who have worked with her cells, of the changes in medical ethics since HeLa was first sold. 

Review:  
I was not a science major, so I had never heard of HeLa or Henrietta Lacks.  I do not generally like science books because I feel like they will go over my head in technical jargon, so I am not sure what led me to read this book.  But I am so glad I did. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has become one of my favorite go-to books. I have listened to the audiobook during a couple of long driving trips. I have read the book itself a couple of times.  Each time I get something new out of the book.  

Rebecca Skloot uses a conversational style that makes even the very technical parts of the book accessible.  But this style made allowed her to blend the very technical aspects of the story almost seamlessly with the very human- or people-focused parts of the story.  And within the very human- or people-focused parts of the story, Rebecca Skloot has to tackle some very tough issues.  The Lacks family has been hurt in some very personal and profound ways by the death of Henrietta, some of the research done on her cells, and some of the people who have attempted to follow Henrietta's story.  At times, there were roadblocks to Rebecca's search for Henrietta's story--but then at times they were the whole reason the story comes to life and matters for the reader.

As much as the story of Henrietta Lacks affected me, I think the history of the changes and current concerns in the area of medical ethics really hit me more.  I feel like that is really what I took (and continue to take away each time I re-read this book).  That is the area that makes me look with a more critical eye at the interactions with my doctors and other medical professionals.  I do not mean to insinuate that I do not trust them--I wholeheartedly believe that most of them do what they do with honorable intentions the same way I believe most of the people who interacted with Henrietta and her family had honorable intentions.  But does that make what happened right?  I believe that is the issue that will still be under debate for years to come. 

Recommendations:
Since I do not typically read science books, I do not know of another one that I could really recommend.  But I recently started another non-fiction book based on psychology research:

TBR Intervention (13)

I was at a conference last weekend so I missed the TBR Intervention.  But I am back this week happy with my progress--even if I have missed some of my targets.

Last TBR Intervention

I finished this one and it was a lot more intriguing than I originally expected. My review will be out on March 19 and the author will have a guest post on his journey to becoming a published author on March 20.


I finished this one--review is coming soon.  I have to say that Charlaine Harris has brought me into her world.  I have not decided if I want to get the DVDs for the True Blood the television series.


I had read One for the Money once before and was not impressed.  After watching the movie, I gave it another chance--and I liked it so much better the second time.  I am excited to read the rest of the series now.

Next Week

Luckily, I got to renew this one from the library.  But I am determined to read this one this week!


I have been very excited to read this one as I hear it is a great dragon-focused book!

Summary (from inside flap):
Dragons Exist.  They're ferocious.  And they're smart: Before they were killed off by slayer-knights, they rendered a select group of eggs dormant, so their offspring would survive.  Only a handful of people know about this, let alone believe it.  These "Slayers" are descended from the original knights, and are now a diverse group of teens that includes Tori, a smart, but spoiled, senator's daughter who didn't sign up to save the world.

Now the dragon eggs have fallen into the wrong hands.  The Slayers must work together to stop the eggs from hatching.  They will fight, they will fall in love.  But will they survive? 


This book is the one I will be giving away as part of the World Book Night celebration. I wanted to re-read it before April 23.

Summary (from Amazon):
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia—a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo—to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

What books do you plan to read this week?