Hey friends!
I have a mini review for you today!  A mini review is my short and sweet analysis of a book.  You'll know in 350 words or less if this is a book I recommend.

Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: January 17, 2006
Format: Kindle
Pages: 288
Source: Amazon
Genre: Autobiography, Memoir
Review Date: September 30, 2013
Rating: 4 bookmarks 

Synopsis: Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an “excitement addict.” Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town—and the family—Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents’ betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor.

Pros:   This book reads like fiction, and that makes the subject matter more palatable. At times I thought "Is this real?” At first I seriously thought it was made up or an extreme embellishment.  But the book went on and on with the parents crazy antics, strange sense of what is important, alcoholism and possible mental illness.  

The timing of the story was fast and well paced.  It seemed like a never-ending roller coaster ride for Jeannette and her siblings. I can hardly believe that any parent would want their child to live in that manner. But that's a whole other discussion.  This book did open up my eyes to a different world, one thankfully that I know nothing about.  

Cons: Simply put, Rex and Rose Mary Walls are the worst part of this story.  I get that they wanted to be minimalist and they wanted their children to be self sufficient, but they really took that to the far extreme.  They are kids after all.  The circumstances that their kids lived in and had to deal with was beyond believable and sad.  But we needed to see the whole picture to understand the Walls kids’ story.  Sadly both parents had their own messed up issues, which in turn trickled down and really influenced how they chose to live their lives. 

Final Thoughts:  Thank goodness for book club! Without book club, I would have never had the pleasure to read this book. I couldn't get this book from the library in a timely manner so I ended up purchasing it.  I was nervous, but I'm glad that I did. It was totally worth it.  Jeannette and her siblings survived their parents and became their own people, successful people (for the most part). They are an excellent representation of how not to become a product of your environment. I recommend this book to everyone. It's an interesting story and it's written in a way that's appealing and easy to digest.

Happy Reading,
~Tamara

Publisher: Hachette Audio; Unabridged edition (April 5, 2011)
Release Date: October 11, 2011
Format: Audio Download
Listening Legnth: 5 hours and 35 minutes
Source: Destination Download
Genre: Non Fiction, Memoir, Autobiography
Review Date: July 18, 2012
Rating: 4 bookmarks

Tina Fey’s Bossypants was named Audiobook of the Year and the Goodread Choice Award for Best Humor in 2011. I'm glad I decided to listen to the audio version instead of reading it. I don't think I would have gotten the full Tina Fey experience without it. Some of the sarcasm or wittiness wouldn't have been lost by reading it.

I didn't know much about her other than her being known for 30 Rock and her Palin imitations, but this chick seems cool. I think she is opinionated, sarcastic, witty and smart.  I like her. I'm not sure what's up with her cover photo, it's a little odd, but regardless don't let it stop you from listening to this audio.  She has a good mix of topics going on, from her stories about growing up, her teen years, her intimidating dad, bad jobs, bad dates, SNL, 30 Rock, it goes on and on. My favorite part were her "lessons for the work place". They are really ingenious and honestly just logical. All people should at least her her talk about that! It was also great to be able to listen to a SNL sketch of Fey doing her Sarah Palin imitation with Amy Polar (not sure about that spelling) impersonating as Hilary Clinton talking about equality and women. That was hilarious!

Even if you're not a die hard SNL fan (such as myself), you'll still enjoy this audio book, I know I did.

A few of my favorite quotes from Bossypants:

"Bossypants Lesson #183: You can’t boss people around if they don’t really care."
"This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury."
"Do your thing and don't care if they like it."
"Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles."
"Never tell a crazy person he’s crazy."

Publisher: Broadway
Release Date: Reprint edition (March 8, 2011)
Format: Kindle
Pages: 400
Source: Download Destination 
Review Date: February 18, 2012
Rating: 3 bookmarks

This is black history month, and I was thinking about reading a classic by an African American author.  That changed when I realized I had to read the this for one of the book clubs that I’m in.  This story counts as black history, so check!  Honestly, at first I didn’t want to read this book and I wasn’t looking forward to it.  I thought the book would be to dry to read so, I sucked it up and rented the book on audio tape.  This was an incredible story. Almost unbelievable.  I apologize in advance if this review seems more like a book report rather than a literary review. Unfortunately, that is how this is one is going to go.  This book tells the story of Henrietta, her family and the history of HeLa cells.  Throughout the book, while Henrietta’s story being told, we get moments in the present with the author reflecting back on situations with various Lacks family members. We also hear about her experiences and the process she went through to learn all of this information for the book.  

Most of this book is a mix of biology and history lessons rolled into one.   In addition to the technical stuff, we find out about how John Hopkins took Henrietta’s cells without permission, harvested them, and sold them.  We learn about Henrietta’s children and what happens to them as they grew up and even later in live as middle aged adults and beyond. We discover how they learned about their mothers cells and how it was virtually hidden from them.  John Hopkins then hid Henrietta’s true identity on purpose when the public got a hold of the story on the immortal cells, most likely so they wouldn’t be caught.  We also learn of Henrietta’s horrible struggle with cancer.  She initially had cervical cancer, which they took her samples while she was under anesthesia being treated with Radium rods.  I can’t imagine living in that time, being treated by a doctor sounds so horrible and barbaric.  According to the doctors, the treatment worked and her cervical cancer was gone…to ensure it stayed gone, they began treating her with radiation, which I personally believe made the cancer come back with a vengeance. Within a few months of being “cured”, she had tumors all throughout her body.  She died in the most terrible pain, unimaginable pain. 

As chapter 17 rolls around, we learn about a cancer researcher, Southam, that injected HeLa into about a dozen a cancer patients. Shortly, those patients starting growing cancer nodules on their arms where HeLa was injected.  After few months, the nodules vanished and/or removed, yet in some patients they later reappeared over and over again. In one patient HeLa cancer cells spread even more. He told them he was testing their immune system, he never said he was injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells.  Shortly after the researcher began using volunteer prison inmates for his test. Tumors grew on their arms, same as the cancer patients.  He also started injections into every gynecological surgery patient...without telling them the cells were cancerous! What a douche bag! He told them he was testing them for cancer. Followed by a lot of information on some history of the Nurumburg code, research ethics and conformed consent.  Also describing how hard it was to prosecute researchers back in the 50’s.  Eventually these actions got out to the press and suddenly doctors involved resigned. In 63’, his study was compared to Nazi research. The 3 doctors that resigned whom had helped Southam gave affidavits stating the experiments were immoral, illegal and much worse. In the end, he was on probation for 1 year. This incident opened the door for the strict research laws and requirements that we have today.  For the next several chapters we learn about contaminated HeLa cells, the creation of nonprofit cell banks, HeLa hybrid cells, and more history lessons on the progress of cell research and how HeLa played a part in it.

As we read on, we got to hear horror stories about John Hopkins and other hospitals being known for snatching black people for experiments…totally horrible stories.

It was sad that Henrietta’s family didn’t know or initially understand what part of her was still alive. Nor did they really didn’t know what Henrietta’s cells where used for. Henrietta’s adult children gave blood to researchers in the 70’s and weren’t clear on what they were giving blood for. They thought the test was to see if they had the same cancer that killed their mother.  It’s truly sad how uninformed they were at the time that they found out that the cells existed.

Beyond all of that that we learn of crazy lawsuits, horrible treatment of people under medical care, especially epileptic patients including elder daughter Elsie, in Crownsville hospital for the mentally ill.  When we get to chapter 36 we even get a small dose of a religious explanation for Henrietta’s immoral cells.  We learn that in at the end of learning all that Rebecca and Deborah could about Henrietta, right before the book was released, she died of a heart attack.  

It’s crazy to think that even today, if you have a procedure, your cells could be used for research, without your knowledge.  Not only this, but the ongoing debate as to if we even have a right to decide to allow our cells to be used.  This topic is so complex, many arguments could be made for both sides on the matter.

No doubt, this is an interesting book.  I was really amazed by all that I learned in this book. I had never heard of HeLa cells before, nor Henrietta Lacks.  That’s probably because I’m not into biology…yet, HeLa cells were and still are a huge part of our advancement in medicine.  We should all know what Henrietta’s cells did for us.  If you’re up for learning something on the topic of cell research, check this book out.  

Thankfully I found this nifty little timeline on Rebecca Skloot’s site.  It was helpful in recalling all of the details. http://rebeccaskloot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/HenriettaLacks_RGG_timeline.pdf