Fascinating, maddening, and thought-provoking.

I had never heard of Henrietta Lacks (I mean, the book is 10 years old, so I had heard of the book/film), and I don't remember learning about HeLa cells in my biology classes, though I'm sure I did. There is so much in this book beyond the science—it's probably 15% science (with enough explanation to give a context to those of us who have forgotten or never really understood in the first place), 15% ethics discussions (nerd alert—I could read a whole book just about that and I loved the afterward, which explains current debates around medical ethics with companies like 23andMe, possible areas where Big Pharma is open to lawsuits, etc), and the rest is about the lives of the Lacks family. Their history is complicated and includes: slavery (they are genetic descendants of white slave owners, ahem), inbreeding and health issues caused by that, murder, con artists, and pentecostalism (the author is an atheist who had never been to church before meeting the Lacks gang, so that was fun).

Highly recommended if you like reading human-interest non-fiction that gives context to current science. I do!