This is a book you either love or cannot plod through. Its a mythical allegory with many characters and plot twists that can leave you scratching your head. Nonetheless, I can understand why it has been acclaimed, but my entire group could not get into it.

This non-fiction reads like a fiction, integrating scientific facts with the real life people affected by medical research. In addtion to telling the compelling story of three generations of Lackses (a poor black tobacco farming family in Virginia), it raises moral and legal questions about the definition of life, ownership of cells, medical research. A must read.