The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks -- Take 2

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks seems like an odd name for this book.  In a lot of ways, the book really isn't about Henrietta.  Sure, her cells are what got the whole story started, but really the story the author tells is about how her children and other family members responded to the discovery that her cells were still being used for medical research decades after Henrietta's death.  The story is theirs.

It's a sad story, although with a happy-ish ending.  It's sad because her family had so little understanding of what happened to Henrietta's cells, and virtually no control over the process.  At the time, as the author points out, that wasn't unusual.  Doctors didn't have to have every patient sign all the waivers and releases that they do now; it just wasn't standard practice.

The author took a very personal interest in the story and in Henrietta's family, and that gives you the happy-ish ending.  Everything doesn't come up roses, but they are vastly improved.

There is not a lot of hard science in the book.  What is there is mostly general and fairly easy to understand, so don't let that scare you off!

In the end, the author does a good job of telling the story, and of carrying Henrietta's daughter, who goes on a voyage of discovery with the author, as the main character throughout the book.  I think I wasn't quite expecting that though.  I thought there would be more science and more about the cells.  It's not bad that there wasn't more of those things (for a lay person like me, anyway), but I did always feel as though the book was about to change drastically from the biography-style writing to hard science.  Given that, I think I finished it feeling a little unsatisfied, because that change never came about, and even though the book didn't really need to take that turn.

Aside: having nothing to do with the actual book itself, I'm totally loving listening to books on audio now that I'm all caught up on podcasts.  It's so quick and enjoyable!  I get to listen to way more this way than I would actually have time to read.