Jodi Picoult has a talent for making her readers consider, and reconsider, issues they’ve never thought much of before. At the center of this, perhaps her most famous novel, is medical emancipation: a thirteen-year-old girl wants to have control of her own body; she doesn’t want to leave decisions up to her parents.

 

Anna’s older sister, Kate, has fought Cancer since the age of two. She is doing badly, nearly dead, when Anna has had enough and consults a lawyer about filing a petition to emancipate herself. She’s had to donate body organs to her sister time and time again, from birth, with no say.

 

This book is competently written, but I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as I expected to. The first half dragged; Julia and Campbell’s relationship seems forced; the ending is tragedy porn. The topic at the novel’s center is intriguing, as is always the case with Picoult . . . This one just didn’t entirely get off the ground, for me. I found myself indifferent to the plight of this family. I never felt I was in their heads.

 

I can recommend this to fans of Picoult, but no one else.

Quick review for a quick read. I first read "My Sister's Keeper" many years ago, but I wanted to do a re-reading of it before I wrote a review. I think my opinion on the book is about the same as it was several years back. It's one of those books that can either work for you or completely throw you by the wayside, though the moral question of the book is very gripping alongside the way Picoult's prose gradually weaves you along the journey.

I almost want to say that there were too many POV points in this novel, though I didn't have much trouble following them. The story revolves Kate and Anna, their parents, and the investigators that are part of the case. Kate has been terminally ill for her entire life, so her parents decide to have Anna in the hopes of providing Kate the chance to live with donations that genetically match Kate's needs. Yet, Anna - at 13 - decides that she doesn't want to go through the pain of the donations anymore, that she wants the right to her own medical decisions. So, she hires a lawyer and decides to sue her parents.

This goes over about as well as you might expect, which is to say not well at all. Picoult provides great amount of tension with respect to the fallout and family's sentiments throughout the case, from the time the case starts to the courtroom and ultimately the novel's conclusion. I think the ending shocked me less this time around than when I initially read it, but I'll admit my first kneejerk reaction was "That was all kinds of wrong." But reflecting on it now, it does have a cruel irony that while I wish it could've turned in a different direction without going for the gut twist, the decisions and moral points that the narrative brings up are still very valid.

I didn't always appreciate some of the detours from the original story. The romances in here seemed force fed to me, and I couldn't reconcile the tone of that versus the tone of the main plot. Still, I thought it was a decent read for what it chose to expound upon. Good multi-cast audio narration as well.

Overall score: 3/5 stars.

my feelings towards the characters were so mixed, I tried to put myself in the Mums place to see if I would have done the same as her under the same circumstances, and really don't know which way I would go. As a Mum I know I'd do anything to save my children.......but creating a 'donor' baby to save another??? well that baby is one of you're children too isn't it and you would be creating it knowing it was going to suffer for the other child therefore defeating the object!

I was totally on Anna's side..........she needed to fight for her own rights once her Mother had become so blinded by Kate's illness and saving Kate that she couldn't see how much pain and suffering she was inflicting on Anna.

for it finally to come out that it was Kate's idea, that she herself was tired and wanted an out, totally threw me I just wasn't expecting it. Then the twist at the end when Anna was killed and she became a donor for Kate anyway and actually saving her life made me wonder why I'd read the book in the first place. it seemed like .....what was the point to this story??? I was totally and utterly disappointed!!!