There's no doubt that Zaccone is sincere in her wish to alleviate suffering, and women with breast cancer, no matter their...
A successful businesswoman gives a warts-and-all account of her fight with cancer.
In 2008, Zaccone learned that a mass in her right breast was an invasive cancerous tumor. Armed with pink boxing gloves and the unwavering support of her husband, family and friends, she underwent chemotherapy and radiation–and the vomiting, hair and weight loss, bouts of constipation and nearly unendurable pain that accompanied the treatment. First she cried: "Not the crying, boo-hoo-hoo, snotty, messy, snorting kind of crying–but more like Niagara Falls; constant." During her "random interruption," Zaccone met and held her ground with several medical professionals. She worried about her looks, had her breasts blessed with holy water, hosted a head-shaving party, drank Grey Goose vodka, shopped for wigs to match her hair color, vowed to quit smoking and didn't, handled insurance claims for her damaged lake house and dreamed of writing a bestseller–all while resembling more and more, in her words, a sort of human Chia Pet. The story is emotionally honest and packed with personal details that few would disclose or openly discuss. It’s heartening to know there’s a husband–"an ass man"–who takes his wife's mastectomy in stride. Some chapters end with brief medical insights ("Dr. Song's Corner") courtesy of Dr. David H. Song of the University of Chicago Medical Center. The book also includes a glossary ("The Language of Breast Cancer") and lists of suggested questions to ask doctors. But despite being a tell-all account of surviving cancer and chemo–complete with facts, fun and photos–the book doesn't fully resonate. Zaccone seemingly has it all–looks, money, love, career and an impressive support system of family and friends–yet the narrative is fraught with seemingly excessive bouts of self-loathing. There's the occasional jarring juxtaposition of text: if it would ensure her soldier godson's safety, Zaccone says she would gladly double her chemotherapy time, but three paragraphs later, she questions her ability to handle three more rounds of a chemotherapy drug.
There's no doubt that Zaccone is sincere in her wish to alleviate suffering, and women with breast cancer, no matter their background, should find comfort and guidance here.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2009
ISBN: 978-1441580573
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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