My Sister's Keeper

My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult

Katie is 2 years old when she is diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia.  The doctor informs her parents that she will need a bone marrow transplant in order to surivive for even a few months or years, and neither her parents nor her brother is a perfect match.

The doctor tells her parents not to despair, that perhaps other siblings will be a match.

This sends Sara and Brian (Kate's parents) to a clinic to genetically engineer a perfect match for Kate.  Months later, Anna is born.

Fast foward 13 years and Kate is 16 and Anna is 13.  After all the treatments, Kate's kidney's are giving out and she needs a transplant.  After years of transplants, transfusions, and donations, Anna is expected to participate in this procedure to.  She surprises them all by hiring a lawyer, and filing for medical emancipation from her parents for the rights to her own body.

I have stayed away from Jodi Picoult because of the smaltzy titles and high drama themes.  But she is a favorite author of a good friend of mine, and this book in particular has intrigued me.  So I picked it up.  Dialogue, characters and side stories all aside ... this book really made me question what I would do.  What anyone would do.  Because honestly ... how far would you go to save your child?

It is very easy to judge Sara.  To say she's a monster for treating Ana and Jesse (her oldest son) this way; for abandoning and neglecting them to care for Kate.  But the world isn't fair.  And when one child requires 1000% more attention than the others ... how do you manage?  What do you do?  And when one child  can save the other ... don't you persue it?

One thing bothered me about this book ... the absence of religion.  I got the impression by a few flippant comments that were made that Picoult doesn't set a lot of store by religion.  But at a few points (maybe only two) characters say to Kate, "you'll watch us from Heaven," "We'll see you in Heaven," etc.  It felt like the author was picking and choosing which parts of religion she favored.

And really, she uses astrology in place of religion.  The stars as a substitute for scripture.

It wasn't bad or great.  It just was.

I've read many reviews that feel the ending of this book was a major cop out.  It didn't bother me in that way.  It was just the way these characters story ended.  I won't go further than that as I don't want to spoil it.

I can't say I enjoyed this, but I am glad I read it.  One of the best lines of the novel is this:

I realize then that we never have children, we receive them.  And sometimes it's not for quite as long as we would have expected or hoped.  But it is still far better than never having had those children at all. Pg 395.

I really got to thinking about some pretty serious stuff after reading this novel, and how much we all take for granted.  For that reason alone it's worth the read.  The fact that Picoult's a decent writer doesn't hurt either.