Biblio Reviews

There was a heaviness to my chest after I finished Skloot's  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  (2010). I was in the midst of what felt like a social, emotional, philosophical, and moral gyre that highlighted the uglies of science, race, poverty, and many -- isms . I couldn't put into words what I was feeling because there was just too much. Skloot, however, had already put into words what overwhelmed me so much by addressing the following questions in the  FAQ  section of her website about this book: Q:  Why is the story of Henrietta Lacks so important? The story of the HeLa cells is important for many of reasons: It’s about race and class and science and ethics and the importance of access to education and health care, all of which are vital current issues. Q:  What messages should be taken from the story? Some of that depends on each individual reader, because there are a lot of potential messages from the book: it’s about trust, race and medici...

Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke's The Cinderella Murder  (2014), is an "Under Suspicion" novel. A fictionalized made-for-TV version of  Serial,  Under Suspicion is TV producer Laurie Moran's brainchild--a cold-case program that revisits unsolved crimes by recreating them with all the parties involved in the case--inspired by her own trauma. The program's debut led to the cold case being solved and had huge ratings. Rosemary Dempsey appeals to Laurie to take on her daughter's twenty-year-old case, known as The Cinderella Murder, for her next TV special with the hope that Laurie can produce the same result. Susan Dempsey was a beautiful and talented UCLA student and aspiring actress. She was found dead wearing only one shoe in a park near the home of then hot-shot, now Oscar-nominated Hollywood director with whom she was was set to audition. The plot revolves around the goings-on of Laurie's team as she prepares the production of the show along wit...