Kapil’s Reviews > The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer > Status Update

Cancer is an expansionist disease; it invades through tissues, sets up colonies in the hostile landscapes, seeking "sanctuary" in one organ and then immigrating to another. It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively-at times, as if teaching us how to survive. To confront cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are.