My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

My Sister's Keeper
Author: Jodi Picoult

Summary

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never questioned… until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is.

But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? [extracted from http://www.jodipicoult.com/]


My review

Started reading this book long time ago and finally finishes it today after many pauses. Unlike many others, each chapter of the story is written out from the inner thoughts of each of the book characters. You might find it pretty confusing initially as the plot of the story doesn't flow so commonly but to keep switching back to the past and the present when the character relates certain scenario to their past memories.

Yet, the story is engaging and touched me deep in my heart how the 13 year old Anna tries to fight this trial against her own parents for the result that will cause her sister to die. She is not any cold-blooded girl you may think of but one that loves her family and her sister. What I feel is that she just want that respect from her parents that they would see her as someone in need too and not only Kate. She is not yearning for attention but just to make her stand clear.

What impact me even more is the twist at the end of the story. Totally unexpected. I mean, many times when you read a book, you would probably have guessed what will happen next and what tempts you to read on is to make sure that your guessing is being confirmed. But not in this case. The author tricked you to think that Anna would have donated her kidney or do something for Kate in the end, no matter what the result of the trial is going to be. Well, I can only say it ended sadly. Sigh...

My favourite quotes:

"I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I'm not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway."
- Campbell Alexander

"And another thing -- this time, you don't get to leave me. I'm going to leave you......In another fifty or sixty years."

- Julia Romano

"Only one thing's a constant. 'Ten years from now,' I say, 'I'd like to be Kate's sister.'"

- Anna Fitzegald

"Shooting stars are not stars at all. They're just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on, when we see one, is only a trail of debris."

- Brian Fitzegald

"Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas - a whole grammar made of light, for words too hard to speak."

- Brian Fitzegald

"See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded."

- Kate Fitzegald