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My Sisters Keeper

By Jodi Picoult

(511)

| Paperback | 9780340976869

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Critics

'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult

I found the subject of Picoult's eleventh novel fascinating and her writing deft and free from cloying schmaltz. Each character in the novel takes it in turn to narrate chapters, which is a great device for being able to show the range and complexity ... (read full critics)

readingmatters published on Mon, 27 Sep 2010

51 Reviews

13 people find this helpful

I haven't read such a good book for a long time. No wonder why so many readers across the world love Jodi Picoult. She is one of the few writers who are not afraid to tackle controversial social issues and present them nicely in an enjoyable read.
The story is about Anna, a 13-year old who h ... (continue)

I haven't read such a good book for a long time. No wonder why so many readers across the world love Jodi Picoult. She is one of the few writers who are not afraid to tackle controversial social issues and present them nicely in an enjoyable read.
The story is about Anna, a 13-year old who hired a lawyer to file a petition to the court to seek medical emancipation from her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald. Anna's elder sister, Kate, was diagnosed with chronic leukemia, and Anna was conceived for one purpose - to act as a donor of matching blood cells to Kate. Originally, Brian and Sara only wanted the blood from Anna's umbilical cord immediately after Anna's birth. But then over the years, Kate had relapses, and her parents had to take blood and bone marrow transfusions from Anna repeatedly. When Kate suffered from renal failure and only the donation of a kidney from Anna could save her, that was too much for Anna to take.
The book is narrated by the major characters, telling the story from their respective perspectives. It is ingenious for the author to tell the story in this way because with such a controversial theme, you have to listen to what each party has to say in doing what they think is justified. Different readers may have sympathy for different characters and take opposite sides. At the end of the day, it comes down to whether you think parents have the right and the ability to make informed decisions for their children. In this story, the decision is painful: the well-being of one child is sacrificed for the benefit of the other one, and the decision is life or death.
I have always been an advocate of freedom of choice, and I cannot tolerate people, be they parents or not, violating that freedom of a minor, even though the minor is their child. I think Anna has every right to say no to the organ donation - we are talking about HER kidney. The kidney is hers and of course her consent must be obtained before it can be removed from her. It's just that simple. How would her parents be in a position to make that decision for her?
But of course there are many complicated issues here, especially since Kate's life depends on it and Anna is the only one who can save her sister. I can understand what their parents thought: that Anna's donation of a kidney can save both their children. That's the argument put forward by Sara, the mother, who used to be an attorney (and she represented herself in the trial). Sara always claimed that she loved both her daughters and the organ transplant could save them both.
I find her argument so lame that I hate her from the start (it was so frustrating reading her narratives that I had to curse her). Obviously, she was making the decision in favour of Kate, the sick one, at the expense of Anna. Anna has been a donor to Kate all her life, and it was not until she turned 13 that she asked people to just pay a little more attention to her and listen to how she felt.
Maybe there are problems with the US medical and legal systems, and Anna somehow fell through the cracks. I just don't understand how people can take organs from a human being without the individual's consent. The issue in the book is whether Anna at 13 has the capacity to make the right decision for herself in the circumstances. Of course she has. Even if she hasn't, her parents won't be in a better position to make the decision for her because their judgement is clouded by the welfare of their dying child and their decision will be biased.
Why would a 13-year old need to go through a trial in order to claim a basic human right of not having her organs harvested against her will?
I would say that nobody has the right to take an organ from a human being, starting from the individual's birth (and not from as late as the age of 13). The umbilical cord blood is alright because we don't need it anyway. But after that, would all parents please stop taking body parts from the children without their agreement no matter how noble that cause will be.
Maybe because I am not a parent, I can't empathise with those parents caught in a similar situation as Brian and Sara. But I am sure that if my child is already dying, I would make every effort not to let my other child suffer.
The book is poignant and harrowing, but it really makes you pause and think.
It's a terrific read and highly recommended. I don't like the ending though ...

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Tracy W said on Aug 6, 2007 | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

Anna was born to provide blood from her umbilical cord to her older sibling who had a serious illness. As years go by, however, she gives blood and bone marrow on multiple occasions. When she is expected to give Kate one of her kidneys in order to save her life once again, she hires her own attorney ... (continue)

Anna was born to provide blood from her umbilical cord to her older sibling who had a serious illness. As years go by, however, she gives blood and bone marrow on multiple occasions. When she is expected to give Kate one of her kidneys in order to save her life once again, she hires her own attorney to emancipate her from her parents so that she can make these decisions on her own. The book provides many points of view and raises important questions. It is read by Julia Gibson, Barbara McCullogh, Andy Paris, Tom Steckhalter, Jenny Eceda, and Richard Poe.

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Missmath144 said on Sep 1, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

Can a parent love too much? Or is too much never enough?
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 o ... (continue)

Can a parent love too much? Or is too much never enough?
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 challenged...until now. Like 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. 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.

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meganzing said on Aug 18, 2008 | 1 feedback

The ending surprised me.

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Sophie Su said on Aug 4, 2011 | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

I tried to put myself into the shoes of Anna while reading this novel. Will I donate a kidney to any of my family members? Will I litigate a lawsuit fighting for my body’s right? There is no answer to it.
I think what Anna wants is not to stop helping Kate, but to get away from the endless giving ... (continue)

I tried to put myself into the shoes of Anna while reading this novel. Will I donate a kidney to any of my family members? Will I litigate a lawsuit fighting for my body’s right? There is no answer to it.
I think what Anna wants is not to stop helping Kate, but to get away from the endless giving without asking for her agreement. She wants the right to decide if she would like to donate her stem cells , pallets, a kidney, ect. or not. She hopes her parents could respect her will, but not treat her like a donating machine, which she thought was the reason she was brought to this world.
I don’t like the mother character, Sara. I guess the author tried to make us feel apathetic about Sara’s situation by spending a lot of chapters, depicting how she cared about and suffered from Kate’s disease. But all I saw is how she tried to be a good mother for Kate, but not for Anna though she claimed she loves them equally. I wonder how she feels when all the time she tried to avoid losing one daughter but turned out losing another one in the end. Isn’t it so ironic?.

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Elenajack said on Dec 12, 2010 about the Mass Market Paperback edition | Add your feedback

The plots are fancily entangled. I love how the different sub-plots are arranged and how they affect each other.
Yet, the end really saddens me and I hardly like it - not because it is said, but it is too dramatic to be credible.
A good read, all in all.

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Purincess said on Nov 12, 2010 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

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Book Details

Rating:
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English Books
Paperback 407 Pages
ISBN-10: 0340976861
ISBN-13: 9780340976869
Pub date: Mar 20, 2008
Dimensions: 1097 mm x 710 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Hardcover, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Others and eBook
In other languages: other languages 繁體書, 简体书, 和書, Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libri Italiani