Nov 29, 2021
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot explores the history of race and its relation to science, HeLa, and the woman behind the famous cells. While Skloot clearly details the scientific aspects of Henrietta’s story, she makes a nonfiction story read as though it is fiction by transforming a story about cells into one about family. This book was fantastic! It was filled with in-depth scientific accounts, legal research, and history lessons while still being entertaining. However, the most exciting and heartbreaking points of Henrietta Lacks’ story were about her family, not her cells, so the novel seemed to drag towards the end of the book in places that were focused on research.