[bksvol-discuss] Just Submitted: Pretty is What Changes
- From: "Donna Smith" <donnafsmith59@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:31:47 -0400
Hi all.
I just uploaded Pretty is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast
Cancer Gene and How I Defied My Destiny by Jessica Queller. This one
is hot off the press, just published this year.
It's a clean scan, and per usual, send me a note at
donnafsmith59@xxxxxxxxx if there are any problems. Here's the long
synopsis:
A TIMELY, AFFECTING MEMOIR FROM THE FRONT LINES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE:
WHEN GENETICS CAN PREDICT HOW WE MAY DIE, HOW THEN DO WE DECIDE HOW TO
LIVE?
Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has
herself tested for the BRCA "breast cancer" gene mutation. The results
come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of
developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in
her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a
family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of
vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught,
or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would
effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most
closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality.
Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller
takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private
interiors of a woman's life. Pretty Is What Changes is an absorbing
account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical,
emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly
moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it
into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters,
and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle
against a common enemy.
Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day
face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark
knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the
information that could save our lives?
JESSICA QUELLER has written for numerous television shows, including
Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, and One Tree Hill. She lives in
New York and Los Angeles.
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