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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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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