{"id":3873,"date":"2019-12-28T17:09:19","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T17:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/?p=3873"},"modified":"2019-12-28T17:09:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T17:09:19","slug":"mother-knows-best-by-kira-peikoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ackgame.com\/onwords\/mother-knows-best-by-kira-peikoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother Knows Best<\/b> by Kira Peikoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mother<\/a>Mother Knows Best<\/a> by Kira Peikoff<\/a>
\nMy rating: 4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

The very clever plot makes up for a few shortcomings on this book. Claire has defective mitochondrial genes and has lost her first child to excruciating genetic disease. Her husband wants to try again. She agrees, but secretly manipulates him and her doctor into experimenting on her, using an egg donor with healthy mitochondria to implant the altered cell that combines her chromosomes with the good mitochondria and produce the world’s first three-parent baby, which in the story violates federal law. The result is Abby, a healthy baby girl. Claire’s husband Ethan, a prominent academic critic of gene manipulation, is unaware that his own daughter is a so-called “frankenbaby.” The egg donor Jill is the doctor’s research assistant, an ambitious and manipulative vixen who is also the doctor’s lover. She considers Abby her experiment to be “monitored.” Claire is forced to flee with Abby. I’ll leave off the plot summary to avoid spoilers, but it gets considerably more complex as the story unfolds.<\/p>\n

The characters are a bit simplistic. The genetic details are surprisingly well-done, although a few inaccuracies pop up, mainly for valid plot advancement reasons. For example, in real life, it is not illegal to conduct such experiments on embryos, at least not in federal law. The states may be enacting their own laws on this. I suspect the genetics can be challenging to follow for those unfamiliar with genetic testing and basic reproduction biology, but they play a crucial role in the plot. Having had my own genome sequenced, I am quite familiar with the process and could point out a few other peccadilloes, but all in all, the author does a good job.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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