lindy_b's review against another edition
3.0
While I would recommend this book to anyone interested in broad questions of bioethics, none of the case studies were as in-depth as I would have liked.
charlibirb's review against another edition
3.0
It felt like a series of interesting articles about different trafficking. I'd have liked a longer book with different body parts, and more of a general tie-in about the whole process. Easy read, very interesting facts.
catbooking's review against another edition
2.0
It was OK. The level of investigation I would expect from a long article rather than a book, but still new information. The thing that was really jarring though, since I was listening to this on audio, was the author was doing all the 'accents'. I usually do not like that in my books but can accept it as an artistic representation, but in this case I wanted to just tell him to stop.
adamgolden's review against another edition
4.0
(4/5★)
In The Red Market, journalist Scott Carney travels around the world attempting to shed light on the suspicious anonymity and covert operations that fuel what is know as "The Red Market". Ever wonder where that human skeleton in your biology class originated from? Or why there isn't a trail of information that tells you where donated blood and organs hail from? Even less gruesome human commodities, like hair for weaves and wigs, have an interesting backstory to them that Carney delves into deeply in this book. Considering the medical advancements in the last 100 years, it'll be interesting to see if this market even exists in half that time, what with organ/tissue 3-D printing and other medicinal technologies.
In The Red Market, journalist Scott Carney travels around the world attempting to shed light on the suspicious anonymity and covert operations that fuel what is know as "The Red Market". Ever wonder where that human skeleton in your biology class originated from? Or why there isn't a trail of information that tells you where donated blood and organs hail from? Even less gruesome human commodities, like hair for weaves and wigs, have an interesting backstory to them that Carney delves into deeply in this book. Considering the medical advancements in the last 100 years, it'll be interesting to see if this market even exists in half that time, what with organ/tissue 3-D printing and other medicinal technologies.
mschaeff's review against another edition
2.0
The topic of this book: fascinating. So cool. The execution of this book: oof. Several hundred pages of ethical guilt trip surrounding topics like organ donation, surrogacy, blood donation, and human trafficking of adopted children. The section on his deceased student was also super weird. (About the only part of this book that I genuinely enjoyed was the chapter on hair, since it was mostly guilt trip free.) It shed light on what is an important topic in social justice, but the ethical sledgehammer got old after about the third chapter. Not really recommended unless you’re truly fascinated by the topic.
lisaeirene's review against another edition
2.0
This book was really full of really interesting topics. I got sucked into the stories but half way through the book it started to lose focus. I feel like he was trying to tackle too many topics in one book.
The story of Indian orphanages was tragic. Apparently there's a high number of children being stolen in India and sold to orphanages, where they are in turn "adopted" (bought) by Americans. There was one story about an Indian couple who's toddler was stolen and sold to a Midwestern couple who had no idea. They thought they had gone to a legitimate adoption agency. Tragic.
The stories about surrogates and IVF were interesting too and I wanted to read more about that...then the book changed topics again.
It's worth a read. It opened my eyes to a lot of things I had no idea were happening.
The story of Indian orphanages was tragic. Apparently there's a high number of children being stolen in India and sold to orphanages, where they are in turn "adopted" (bought) by Americans. There was one story about an Indian couple who's toddler was stolen and sold to a Midwestern couple who had no idea. They thought they had gone to a legitimate adoption agency. Tragic.
The stories about surrogates and IVF were interesting too and I wanted to read more about that...then the book changed topics again.
It's worth a read. It opened my eyes to a lot of things I had no idea were happening.