Book Club Friday: Call Me Tuesday

 

It's been so long since I've linked up for Book Club Friday!  I'm excited to be back, and to share this book with all of you!  It's been a while since I've gotten so into a book that I can hardly put it down, that was precisely what happened when I picked up Call Me Tuesday during our flight home from Seattle.

 

 

From Amazon:

 

At eight-years-old, Tuesday Storm's childhood is forever lost when tragedy sends her family spiraling out of control into irreparable dysfunction. Almost overnight, the loving environment she's come to know is replaced with unrelenting hostility and twisted punishments, as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking behind the face of the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts, with raw emotion, her physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes--a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving.

 

This book is heartbreakingly sad.  It goes into detail about poor Tuesday's abuse, and I wouldn't recommend those of you drowning in hormones (ie Me) to rush out and buy it.  I'm not entirely sure how this got on my to-read list, but despite the in-flight tears, it was so worth the read.

 

Call Me Tuesday had me wishing I could jump right into the pages and save little Tuesday from her hellish life myself.  It is compelling, and a little confusing.  Confusing not because it is not clearly written, but because if you're like me, you truly can't comprehend a parent subjecting their child to the kind of abuse Tuesday is put through.

 

 

What's the best book you've read recently?

Book Club Friday: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

 

I'm linking up with Heather of Blonde Undercover Blonde for the first time eva today to share a book I recently read and loved.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of.

(From Rebecca Skloot's Website)

I'm not sure if being in the medical field cinched my interest in this book, but as soon as I picked it up in the bookstore I knew I'd be into it.  It sucks you in, and really makes you think about the medical research industry and all it has evolved from and into.  It is not all science and med talk though - it tells the sad story of Henrietta Lacks losing her horrific battle with cervical cancer, and the unraveling of her family that followed.

Now that I am the proud owner of a Kindle (Thanks, MIL Red!), I may or may not be doing more and more Book Club Fridays - what do y'all think?

Help me stock my Kindle full of goodies to read,

what's the last good book you read?

(And then go link it up to Heather's Book Club Friday!)

PS!

If you're coming over from Blonde Undercover Blonde, make sure to check our my awesome Beauty Bundle GIVEAWAY, complete with makeup perfect for blondes OR brunettes!  (Or redheads, of course.)