Book Review: My Sister's Keeper

A few weeks ago, some friends from work were commenting that they'd read this book, My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult. Then I found out that it was a movie. I decided to add it to my summer reading list. For those of you who read primarily Christian fiction, this is not that kind of book. It is, however, a book that left me pondering the choices I would make, and reactions I would have, given the same situation.

I have never read any of Piccoult's work, but I've heard good things about it. She is quite a writer! Her use of simile and metaphor caused me to stop and think on more than one occasion.

This is the story of the Fitzgerald family. Brian and Sara have three children: Jesse, Kate, and Anna. Kate, who has leukemia, was diagnosed at the age of two. Anna was genetically conceived to be a donor match for her sister.

Now, at the age of 13, Anna has hired attorney Campbell Alexander to medically emancipate herself from her family. Campbell, though reluctant, takes on this case pro bono.

I love this description from the back cover: A provocative novel that raises some important ethical issues, My Sister's Keeper is the story of one family's struggle for survival at all human costs and a stunning moral parable for all time. It's true.

This book has an ending that will shock the reader! In fact, in an interview with Piccoult recorded in the back of my copy, she admits that her own twelve-year-old read the book. When he finished it, he was weeping on the couch. She said he wouldn't even talk to her for a while! When they finally did sit down to discuss it, he asked "Why? Why did it have to end like that?" Piccoult tells him this is not an easy book and has no easy answers.

Piccoult does an amazing job of getting inside each character's thoughts and feelings while facing a very difficult and grueling situation. Each one is faced with some serious soul-searching. And each one emerges different at the end of the book.

Very rarely do I say a book is a "must read"...and this is no different. I will say, though, that for me, this book just may be a "read it again" book!