Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Book Reviews for May

I am only 1.5 books behind schedule for the year! I am pretty excited about this. Next week I don't have school, so I am hoping I can catch up before June hits. I read two interesting and unusual books (for me, at least) this month so I wanted to tell you about them.

World War Z.
I first heard of this book about a year ago from an English teacher at my old school, HVA. I told her Matt liked zombies and she said she thought it was one of the best ones she had read. I wanted to get him something for being so supportive during my internship year. I am not too into that kind of thing, but I am getting close to have read most of the books in the house, and this one was still there. So I picked it up.

This book takes place after the Zombie War, also called World War Z. They aren't sure where it exactly originated, but a man chronicled several stories from all sorts of people from all over the world. He traces how it spread, what it was like, and how people began to eventually beat the zombies. Like I said, I normally would never think to read this, but it was very interesting. The individual stories are well written and it feels realistic (gawk). It is also being made into a movie starring Brad Pitt, so it will be interesting to see how it transforms into a movie. I believe he will be a character named Todd who is a soldier in the USA. We hear him speak three or four times in the novel, which is more than any other character. If someday we see that movie, I will review it, too!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
This is another book I would not usually choose to read. Last year I heard a lot about this book because it was the One Read for the city in 2011. (Columbia picks a book and there are several events and discussions surrounding it in late summer. I plan to read the book for this year next week called The Tiger Mom.)

This book is a biography of a woman and her family and also a biography of the famous HeLa cells that spawned great research. These cells helped scientists understand DNA, cell development, vaccines to different diseases and also why cancer cells continue to grow. The cells were taken without her knowledge in the fifties, and she died soon after from cervical cancer.  Because the cells were cancerous, they continued to divide indefinitely when in the right culture (kind of like food for the cells). Her family is generally uneducated and live in poverty. They never receive any royalties and go through a lot of turmoil trying to find out who their mother is. They are not aware of the cells until twenty years later. I cried at the very end, but I don't want to spoil it for you-so just go read it!

Have you read any good books lately?

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