Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair) reviewed on 3/2/2019 + 461 more book reviews

As a nonfiction book it was highly educational about many important topics in medicine both back then and today. I had not heard of HeLa cells before reading the book, nor the Hayflick limit and can definitely say I learned a lot reading it. I haven't noted others saying this in their reviews, so maybe I'm in the minority here, but I found myself uncomfortable during the very detailed descriptive sections describing for instance Cooties home, furniture, possessions, decorations as well as many other sections describing how other members of the family lived, which I felt was unnecessary for the book. Did we really need to know that? Did we need to know their criminal backgrounds? Was it not enough for the author to describe they lived in extreme poverty? I felt that if she had published the book prior to the death of Deborah, she would never have included so much personal description (including how they dressed, looked, talked) that would have humiliated the family to read, and will humiliate future generations of Lacks family to read. This continued to disturb me as I read the book. Learning about HeLA was enough to make the book successful.

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