Review: The Immortal Life if Henrietta Lacks

Author: Rebecca Skloot
Genre: Historical Non-Fiction
Pages: 362
Warnings: References to Tuskegee and other racial injustices, e.g. Jim Crow south, freaky descriptions of early radiation treatment
Rating: 4.5/5

Usually I read fiction (fantasy or science fiction or whatever) because I need a compelling story-line to keep me engaged. For me, it isn't enough for an author to have great skill at crafting sentences, their books also need a reasonably cool plot. I completely understand why the books of non-fiction writers are never judged based on how well they make a tale hang together, but there it is. I'm pleased to say that "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" delivers on all fronts. This book was a fantastic read by any way I measure it.

While the narrative Skloot writes about are anything but simple, her style of writing is easy to follow and her structure flows well. For clarity's sake, the year in which the majority of the chapter's action takes place is labeled at the beginning of the chapter. The first plot-line follows Henrietta Lacks herself, a woman born in 1920 and who died of a vicious strain of cervical cancer in 1951 (source). The second is about how Rebecca Skloot approaches and gradually wins the trust of Deborah, Mrs. Lacks' youngest daughter (in the early 2000's). The third story is a more clinical view of the history of consent in medicine (which sounds slightly textbook-y because it is), which converges on the HeLa case and branches off in some notable directions.

I hate to divulge too much of the book if it will stop anyone from reading it on their own time, but I want to state there are some admirable qualities to Skloot's narratives beyond being compelling as heck. Early on, Skloot makes it clear that she is a white woman telling the story of a black family. She doesn't avoid the fact that her being a white women that has her coming from a completely different, privileged world. As another white person, I can't make any definitive statements about how Skloot portrays Mrs. Lacks and her family; however I believe she is trying to be a respectful ally. That means Skloot presents the details of Mrs. Lack's life as accurately as possible, without malice or judgement. It means that she portrays the hurdles she has to leap to gain even the tiniest bit of trust trust from the Lacks family as  reasonable road blocks the family has created after numerous people have tried to take advantage of them (which is what they are).

On the other side of the immensely personal retelling of Mrs. Lacks life and death is a small-scale retelling of how medical science used and misused Mrs. Lacks' cells, code named HeLa. There is a brief overview of other cases that share similarities with Mrs. Lacks'. You see, medical science has no small history of experimentation on minorities, and of taking and using remarkable tissue samples without asking. HeLa was probably the most fascinating example of how patient's and doctor's best interests can diverge. No matter how I look at it, I feel like Mrs. Lacks was treated to a grave injustice, as was her family.

I think this book is the complete package. Skloot is descriptive without being wordy, her writing juggles several intertwining story-lines without getting confusing and she has a knack for getting her readers emotionally invested. It was a lot more focus on a good, evocative story than I was expecting from a non-fiction book, so if you would prefer facts over feelings, this book might not be worth it to you. If you're traditionally a fiction reader like myself, this is a great way to get into absolutely wonderful non-fiction, where I realized stories can mean more when they're real. More than that, this book started me asking questions about how the legal relationship between medical professionals and patients should look. I don't know the answers, but those are questions worth asking. One warning: I'm not sure if this will affect anyone else quite as strongly, but the descriptions of early radiation treatment for cervical cancer freaked me out!

Questions and Comments Welcome~

Review: Crossroads Road

Author: Jeff Kay
Genre: Fiction, Humor
Pages: 196
Warnings: Fat Hatred, Race and Gender Fail
Rating: 2.5/5

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from the LibraryThing Member Giveaway.

"Crossroads Road" is main character Jovis' account of a series of intentionally ridiculous events. Jovis' mother-in-law, whom he has lovingly dubbed "Sunshine", wins the lottery and several million dollars. She's willing to give her children and their families a large chunk of it (2 million dollars) so long as they agree to live on a cul-de-sac with her. All of her children agree and hijinks ensue.

I have to say it right away but this book didn't get funny for me until after the halfway mark. Kay seems to rely on two major sources of humor, and I only found the second method effective. The first half of the book is intended to be situational comedy regarding Jovis' outrageous in-laws. I can enjoy this style of humor based on my intense love of Terry Prachett's Discworld series, but Jovis' rubbed me the wrong way. To be fair, Jovis' in-laws do behave in some ridiculous ways, but most of the scene-building is punctuated by the narrator's internal monologue. Spoiler: Jovis is a raging asshole. I suspect most of the narrator's snide remarks about his family are supposed to be funny, but they just struck me as mean-spirited.

For clarification purposes, let me provide a slice of each family's specially-tailored funny attribute. Also Jovi is married to Tara.

Sue is Tara's sister, and married to Matt. Sue is fat. All the jokes about Sue, and Sue's family, ultimately fall back of the fact that she's overweight. She "fakes" her way into needing a scooter, she's needy for attention,  she requires a special toilet seat and her husband got tricked into marrying her when she was young and not-fat. I do not get why someone who is overweight can suddenly become the butt of every joke and the ultimate villian in every situation. Suffice to say: fat jokes do not hit the spot for me.

Nancy is also Tara's sister, and married to Kevin. Nancy and Kevin are academics, and therefore eat gross food, are never on time to anything, don't watch new TV and have weird sexual fetishes. I will admit that I did find some of the jokes about Nancy and Kevin a bit more funny, but again Jovis' tone just made me feel like an jerk for wanting to laugh.

Ben is Tara's brother, and Buddy is Tara's step-sister, and I don't remember them being the butt of too many jokes. I wonder if it's because they're men, and there just aren't enough noxious stereotypes to play off of? On that note, there is a woman named Carina who is the only non-white character and she is impossible to understand (because of the accent).

Luckily, the second half of the book was funny when you realized that Jovis, dear sweet Jovis, was the butt of all the jokes. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be laughing with Jovis or at him, so it took a while for me to recognize that his mean-spirited remarks where supposed to illustrate what a giant douchebag Jovis was. While he's busy judging the other characters, they're busy judging him! That was when it started getting funny for me. Instead of viewing an event as a chance to laugh at Jovis' "crazy in-laws" I got to laugh at how his need to be the good guy kept making him snotty martyr. It is kind of fun watching an asshole dig their own grave. For that reason I loved the ending.

This book was just not as funny as I hoped it would be. I wasn't sure if I should be laughing at the main character's faux-witty remarks or how incredibly obnoxious he was being. When I finally settled down into mocking Jovis, I chuckled, but I didn't make me belly-laugh. Now the ending brought out a real laugh, but I don't think I should read 196 pages of build-up for one joke. If you really, really like fat jokes or if you like seeing assholes get what they deserve and you have a few hours you don't want back, this book is for you. If not, oh well.

And now, for some Terry Prachett!

People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."(source)

Comments and Questions Welcome~

Update: Out of Town

Hey all: I'm currently on vacation, so there will be no posting for the rest of the week. Expect to see regular posting resume during the second week of June!

For now, here is a picture of me in Amsterdam! For clarification purposes only, I am the one with flowers on my shirt.

Review: Naamah's Curse

Author: Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Alternate History Fiction
Pages: 537
Warnings: Sexual Harassment, Consensual sex between adults
Series: 7/8(?) in Kushiel's Legacy
Rating: 3.5/5

Jacqueline Carey's "Naamah's Curse" is a reminder that the first requirement of a good book is to be entertaining. It took me over a week to read "The Sword of Shannara", and I had almost nothing else to distract me. In contrast I breezed through "Naamah's Curse" in a day and a half. I won't say I couldn't put it down, but I didn't have to: this book is very easy reading. It picks up immediately after "Naamah's Kiss" with Moirin traveling through psuedo-China (Ch'in) as she chases after Bao.

If you've read the previous book this should come as no surprise, but Moirin is very sexual. She sleeps with almost every major character in the book. It would differentiate this from harlequin romance novels though, as the descriptions of sex aren't terribly explicit, where explicit includes more than flowery euphemisms for vulvae and penises. However if you're uncomfortable with causal sex between members of any gender, avoid this book. You will not enjoy the opinions expressed in this book regarding sexual relations. Luckily for me  I really appreciate her attitude towards sex, although I was not interested in "Kushiel's Dart".

Something that did leave me concerned was the portrayals of the psuedo -Chinese (Ch'in), -Mongolian (Tartar) and -Bhutanese (Bhodistanese). Warning bells start ringing in my head when a book is written in English about non-English-speaking cultures, even if they're dressed up with different names. Typically such portrayals are stilted, with characters that are presented as over-played caricatures (like Mr. Miyagi from the movie "The Karate Kid", which always makes me cringe). As part of the intended audience instead of the intended subject matter I'm not in a great position to judge how stereotyped the non-native characters are, but I'd welcome critical analysis of it.

The only borrowed culture I do know for sure was one-sided was that of the Russian (Vralians) Christians. I know Carey made a point of stating that the Vralians in the novel were from an intolerant sect of Eastern European Christians, but they were all uniformly incapable of having healthy sex lives. While I have personal qualms about the more extreme sects of Christianity's opinions about sex, I seriously doubt that even the most uptight families are as repressed as Aleski's, and they were the only Vralian family mentioned. More importantly, being prudish isn't the same thing as being hateful. In all of the other civilizations Moirin meets a wide swath of people, while in Vralia she only meets sexually repressed, unhealthy people.

If you'd like an easy to read story, with some mildly interesting characters and a plot, I would encourage you to read this book if it's readily available. I will probably read the conclusion to this trilogy, but I am unlikely to go back and read any of the previous books in the series. However if you're likely to have any disagreements with the philosophy espoused within (that sex is awesome, and can be shared between any two people who are attracted and care about each other) ... I'm sorry. Also you shouldn't read this book.

Questions and Comments Welcome~

Review: The Sword of Shannara

Author: Terry Brooks
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
Pages: 726
Warnings: Death, some imagery of violence death, Tolkien-clone
Rating: 2.5/5

One of my friends suggested I look into Terry Brook's Shannara book series, but it took me no small amount of time to decide which book to start with. After a bit of research I gave up trying to be systematic and settled on "The Sword of Shannara". It's the first book in the series Terry Brooks wrote, although it takes place towards the end of the universe's chronology.

I swear, "The Sword of Shannara" is a clone of Tolkien's style, archetypes and plot. This goes beyond the basic similarities most high fantasy books share. Some of the similarities were positive, but Brooks also copied some of my least favorite aspects of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The wholesale borrowing of major plot points is the most obvious.

The plot is as follows: A mysterious wizard druid arrives in the peaceful Shire Shady Vale and informs Frodo Shea that only he is qualified to destroy wield the legendary One Ring Sword of Shannara so it can't be used by the evil Sauron can be used to kill the Warlock Lord. He and a few close companions travel to an official meeting in Rivendell Culhaven, the home of the elves dwarves. Along the way they are harrowed by Ring Wraiths Skull Bearers. There the main characters band with a group of humans, elves and dwarves to quest for the ring sword. During their travels they shortcut through the cursed mines of Moria Hall of Kings. After a certain amount of running around which I can't be bothered to remember, the party gets split into at least two groups culmination of the story. The majority of the humans, elves and dwarves converge on the kingdom of Rohan Callahorn, where they must free the king from the evil influence of Wormtongue Stenmin. Then his people retreat to Helm's Deep Tyrsis, a highly fortified keep where they attempt to hold back the forces of evil. After a long and painful siege, the elven army comes to their rescue, and the army of Mordor the Skull Kingdom is defeated. At the same time the main character and his stalwart sidekick Samwise Panamon Creel travel to the heart of enemy territory with their guide Gollum Keltset to destroy the ring use the sword.  After a certain amount of soul-searching, their mission is accomplished, and everyone who's still alive goes home!

To be fair, I did simplify some points to emphasize their similarity and skipped over some of the more boring fight scenes in LotR. However with only mild embellishment most of the major plot points of "The Sword of Shannara" are a name-change away from those in "The Lord of the Rings". On the plus side, that meant the plot was solid, and could be described using words like "epic" and "legendary". On the down side, I've already read LotR. For anyone else who also just happens to have read Tolkien's trilogy, there will be zero sense of suspense generated by Brook's book. For instance, when the heroes traveled into the Hall of Kings, I already knew there was a terrifying monster lurking at the end. The surprise? It was a water-monster instead of a fire-monster! There is very little different material, so I'll try to avoid revealing any more of it.

I can't fault Brooks for using the same species list as Tolkien, since almost every high fantasy writer draws from said list. I believe there are good fantasy books that feature species aside from Elves, Dwarves, Trolls and Gnomes out there. I do! Brandon Sanderson, back me up here.

Another characteristic of Tolkien's that I would have preferred Brooks left alone was his overly wordy prose. It took me almost a year to finish "The Two Towers", because I just lost the motivation to read it three times and didn't come back to it for months. Brook's first book is a little better, but I found myself skipping over huge chunks of descriptive paragraphs to get to dialogue. My interest in hearing more about some of the characters who diverge from Tolkien's template warred with my disinterest in his prose. The result was that I finished this book, but I didn't like it all that much. I don't want to read any more novels written by Brooks unless I can get some assurance he stopped trying to be Tolkien.

Some of the areas I thought Brooks shined as an author was when he left Tolkien alone. I enjoyed all of the new characters Brooks created, like Panamon Creel, and Menion Leah. I thought they were most interesting personalities because they didn't have analogues to Tolkien's characters and because Brooks spent more time fleshing them out. I also liked that "The Sword of Shannara" is set on a post-nuclear-apocalypse Earth, which was a relatively new story idea in 1967.

If you liked Tolkien, you'll like Terry Brooks. You'll definitively like "The Sword of Shannara" for all the same reasons "The Lord of the Rings" tickled your fancy. Enjoy rich fantasy worlds, with an author who dreamed up a timeline lasting thousands of years before or after the book you're reading? Like the reassuringly familiar structure of high fantasy, the straightforwardness of Good versus Evil in Black Cloaks? Have a crush on elves? Good, you should read this when you have some free time. If you've already read LotR and you don't want to read it again, stay away from this. Go read some science fiction, for goodness sake.

Questions, Comments and Kvetching Welcome~