I think this is an important book telling an important story. Henrietta Lacks is someone people should know. Her contributions to science, willing or not, have been immeasurable in the nearly 70 years since her death and she should be known for that. It's wonderful that this book has turned her into a household name, as famous as her Hela cells.

I loved hearing the story of her life and what was done to her, the story of her family, the story of medicine because of her. That was my favorite part of this book. I was incredibly interested in the narrative and the person Henrietta Lacks was.

I loved the ethical discussions in this book, both at the time of Henrietta's life and today (or at least the early 2000s when this book was written). I can't really weigh in much, but just talking about the right to your own body, and what constitutes informed consent is interesting and important. There aren't any easy answers, but it seems like capitalism isn't doing medicine many favors.

I'm not a scientifically inclined person so I did struggle a lot with the science in this book. I liked the story and narrative aspects, but sometimes it delved into almost straight science. I don't think that was a flaw by any means. For a book like this, including some of the science is absolutely necessary. But I didn't understand much of it and it slowed my reading quite a bit.

I didn't love the author, though. It felt like she inserted herself into this book quite a bit, and a good section of the book was about her journey in telling the story, rather than the story itself. It didn't feel like she contributed anything. It also felt to me like she treated the extended Lacks family with a bit of condescension and shared quite a few personal details about their lives. I wonder how much they consented to being shared, especially considering some died before the publication of this book and others never seemed overly fond of Skloot.

There's also the question of money in terms of this book. It felt to me like Skloot was yet another white person profiting off this family, without them seeing any of the financial gain. Not everything is always about money, but it seems like everyone has made money from this situation except for the Lackses. At the end she said a portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to a scholarship in Henrietta Lacks's name, but there's no mention of money beyond that. For all the ethical questions raised in this book, that was another for me.

But even with those issues, I think this topic is so important that it kind of overshadowed my feelings toward the author. I thought about giving it three stars, but I couldn't. I think the Henrietta Lacks story is one that should have been told earlier. These conversations about medical ethics should have happened earlier. I would highly recommend this book. It won't make my favorites list, but I feel like I've gained something very important from reading it.