Book Review--My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

I have just recently discovered Jodi Picoult, and I just love her books. My Sister's Keeper came out in paperback in February. I bawled most of the way through it; if you don't like tearjerkers, you might want to avoid this one. It's about a girl, Anna, who as conceived as a bone marrow match for her older sister, Kate, who has an aggressive form of leukemia. The book begins when Anna is 13 and after undergoing countless surgeries on her sister's behalf, she hires a lawyer because she doesn't want to give Kate one of her kidneys. With Kate's kind of leukemia, the body just gets worn out from fighting it, and in her case, her kidneys were giving out. The book alternates between various points of view--Anna's, her lawyer's, her mother's, her father's, her brother's, and Anna's guardian ad litem (appointed by the court to be Anna's advocate). The parts told from Anna's mother's point of view also go back in time, to when Kate was first diagnosed and various points in her childhood. This sounds like the book would be hard to follow, but it actually flows really well.

I didn't come away from reading the book with a clearer sense of right and wrong concerning the issues--"designer babies," stem cell research, etc. If anything, the book illustrates just how complicated the issues are. I didn't really blame the parents for doing anything they could to save their daughter. How could they not? But, they had a little girl who knew perfectly well that she was conceived to save Kate's life, and who seemed to have little sense of her own self worth apart from Kate. Indeed, Kate's horrific illness takes up so much of the family's energy that it often seemed to leave room for little else; the girls' older brother also feels neglected, as well as guilty, for not being able to save Kate's life himself (since he wasn't a match). At times, when others were talking about her, I didn't like the mother, but the sections from her point of view and her despair each time Kate relapsed absolutely broke my heart.

This was an amazing book, with an engaging storyline and three-dimensional, sympathetic characters. It was so fascinating to see how these complex social issues might actually play out in a family.