A review by taibreakfast
Pandora's DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family Tree by Lizzie Stark

challenging hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Picked this up because I really enjoyed her book on eggs, where she mentions briefly her journey with removing her ovaries. I had noticed she didn't talk about that as much as one might expect, and it makes sense...she essentially already wrote a whole book about it (but about breasts, she hadn't removed her ovaries yet when she wrote this almost 10 years earlier). As well as with the egg book, I enjoyed this writing style that is part journalism and historical research, part cultural criticism, and part memoir. She is able to explain science in very accessible and engaging ways. She writes about herself while situating her story among other people's stories and among a broader context. The misogynistic history of medicine can be hard to read at times, but taking breaks helped!
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