Book Description:
The difficult choices a family must make when a child is diagnosed with a serious disease are explored with pathos and understanding in this 11th novel by Picoult (Second Glance, etc.). The author, who has taken on such controversial subjects as euthanasia (Mercy), teen suicide (The Pact) and sterilization laws (Second Glance), turns her gaze on genetic planning, the prospect of creating babies for health purposes and the ethical and moral fallout that results. Kate Fitzgerald has a rare form of leukemia. Her sister, Anna, was conceived to provide a donor match for procedures that become increasingly invasive. At 13, Anna hires a lawyer so that she can sue her parents for the right to make her own decisions about how her body is used when a kidney transplant is planned. Meanwhile, Jesse, the neglected oldest child of the family, is out setting fires, which his firefighter father, Brian, inevitably puts out. Picoult uses multiple viewpoints to reveal each character's intentions and observations, but she doesn't manage her transitions as gracefully as usual; a series of flashbacks are abrupt. Nor is Sara, the children's mother, as well developed and three-dimensional as previous Picoult protagonists. Her devotion to Kate is understandable, but her complete lack of sympathy for Anna's predicament until the trial does not ring true, nor can we buy that Sara would dust off her law degree and represent herself in such a complicated case. Nevertheless, Picoult ably explores a complex subject with bravado and clarity, and comes up with a heart-wrenching, unexpected plot twist at the book's conclusion.
There is Kate with hair and Kate all bald; one of Kate as a baby sitting on Jesse's lap; one of my mother holding each of them on teh edge of a pool. There are pictures of me, too, but not many. I go from infant to about ten years old in one fell swoop.
Maybe it's because I was the third child, and they were sick and tired of keeping a catalog of life. Maybe it's because they forgot.
~; My sister's keeper (Jodi Piccoult)
My thoughts:
if you seen the movie, I say read the book. it's the same but not as much as you think it is.
I knew of this book for a while now, but i didn't know what's it was all about, but of course, I ended up letting it piled up in my TBRs for the longest time. Until the movie came....
I have a soft spot in anything that's being regard as a "spare part child". It has become an itch, or a peeve if you may, an issue this book has managed to portray.
I found myself trying to read it through whenever I could. This book comprised of first hand experience from all of the characters involved. The book centered on Anna, the specially engineered child by their parents, to be the sole donor for her older sister Kate, who is suffering from a rare kind of Leukemia. One day, she just suddenly said she had enough and decided to court to apply for Medical emancipation from her parents.
Personally this book is an emotional read for me. I got so absorbed in it, and I found myself feeling sorry for Anna through out the book. Regardless screaming somebody die already because i wanted to finish the book asap too lol.
