The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot ----------------- 3 Stars

To be candid, I really struggled with what ranking to give this book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The ranking system is predicated on how engaging a book is to me personally. And, while I found this book engaging in many ways, I also found it a painful book to get through which often made me not want to pick it up. Yet, I am so happy to have learned about Henrietta Lacks, her family, and her importance in medical history.

While I clearly am a bit late to it, it's always great to learn about something new. As this book was a NY Times Bestseller over ten years ago, and a feature movie was made about it, clearly it was beloved by many audiences. And, for good reason; it's simply one of the most stunning and unbelievable stories in American medical history. Like nearly everyone, learning about Henrietta Lacks' life was new to me. While I knew the book was popular and had something to do with science and cells, I really had no clue about her impact on so many lives. She truly changed the world for the better.

The book is a captivating read, and the author does a nice job of weaving together both the history and science related to Henrietta Lacks while also presenting a biographical sketch of her and her family. When I picked up the book, I really had no idea how much detail would be included about her family and future generation of Lacks'. The journey, hardships, and experiences of her life and life of her ancestors truly made it so there were parts of the book I couldn't put down.

Unfortunately, I found so many parts of the story so difficult and painful to get through, especially in the final parts of the book. Not surprisingly, being an African American woman in the first half of the 20th century in the southern US was a difficult experience. In addition, much of her family and relatives also suffered a variety of struggles that made many of their lives quite difficult. And like many less privileged groups, so much of their pain and struggle were caused by inequitable and racist systems and people that exist.

As I said, I am so happy I heard about, read, and learned about Henrietta Lacks. If you don't know her story, please take the time to read the book, or at a minimum, learn about her and her importance in American (and world) history. The book truly is fascinating and captivating. However, I often turn to reading to escape some of the pain that exists in our current world. This book made me feel more of it. The way Henrietta, her family, and so many others were treated (and continue to be treated unfairly) is both a useful reminder of the difficult history of country. The irony that a person (and those like her) was treated so poorly but ended up helping the world as much as she did is not lost on me!