My Sister's Keeper

erinchristy — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:56:17 GMT

I've been asking viewers to email and write in on their thoughts about my book club books, most recently My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Little did I know, it's a loaded request to ask, considering after reading the book I still truly do not know my own thoughts on the book. It's easy to say I "liked" the book and that I enjoyed the book. The topic just raises so many questions that it has just left me as it did all of the characters: feeling helpless and confused.

Honestly, I chose this book simply because my grandmother suggested it. Plus, the movie version of the book, starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin, is about to be released. I thought, "this is supposed to be good, let's read the book. It's a timely choice." I was not expecting the heartbreak, the tears and certainly not the surprise ending that fuels such anger toward the author. I'm still angry about the ending, one that I never would have predicted, but now realize that there wasn't going to be a winning solution. No happy ending. So, of the options, perhaps this was the only one to have.

It's the story of a 13-year-old girl Anna, literally "designed" by science through In-Vitro fertilization, to be a genetic match for her older sister battling leukemia. She has been through countless surgeries, given bone marrow, and when asked to give a kidney, she instead decides to sue her own parents for the rights to her body.

From page one, the topic conjures up so many questions in your mind. Would you do this for a sibling? Does this child even know what kind of decision she is making and the consequences it would have? Are the parents doing the right thing? How far would you go?

The book left me torn through the end, as it seems it intended to do. The mother, Sara, is not the most likeable character, and it is very easy to want to be judgmental toward every decision she's made. But just like every character in the book, she is left with decisions that no one, no parent, no human being, wants to even think about, much less make.

I often thought Anna maybe had a little too much insight into the adult psyche, a little too much wit and even knowledge for a child. But the character is no ordinary girl, and she has gone through more than most people will in their lifetime, so her character soon started to make more sense.

Decision, choice, sacrifice, unconditional love, life, grief. One family's story encompasses it all.

Hope you brought the kleenex. After this one, we are lightening things up a bit next month.

Erin's Midday Book Club

My Sister's Keeper