just finished jodi picoult's my sister's keeper.


it's a heart-wrenching, beautiful novel about a family with a daughter suffering from leukemia. their eldest, jesse, was not a suitable donor. therefore they decided to have anna, a designer baby - a baby genetically programmed to be a perfect donor match for her sister, kate. at first anna was supposed to donate only her umbilical cord blood, but soon the process repeated itself - platelets, lymphocytes, granulocytes, bone marrow, stem cells, tissue, organ.


aged 13, anna approached a lawyer to represent her suing her parents for medical emancipation.


what made the story engaging was that it's written from the characters' point of views, in first person terms. each chapter printed in different font, the paragraphs were grouped to several sections, relaying enough background with the messages loud and clear. flashbacks were used heavily.


there were in total 6 characters' viewpoints: the father, mother, jesse, anna, anna's lawyer and anna's guardian ad litem who happened to be the lawyer's ex-girlfriend. I'm not sure why kate's viewpoint was not included until the very last chapter, but then it made me relate with anna more, although I could also see that each family member had their own share of the painful journey.


and the ending, the ending was so heartbreaking. I guessed that anna would win the case, but then still decided to donate her kidney to her sister, and they lived happily ever after. but I was so wrong. I won't disclose it here, though. the novel's a must read.



Like I said, I was eleven, so even to this day I can't tell you how I made my way from our house in Upper Darby to the middle of downtown Providence. I suppose it took me a few hours; I suppose I believed that with my new superhero's cloak of invisibility, maybe I could just disappear and reappear somewhere else entirely.


I tested myself. I walked through the business district, and sure enough, people passed right by me, their eyes on the cracks of the pavement or staring straigth ahead like corporate zombies. I walked by a long wall of mirrored glass on the side of a building, where I could see myself. But no matter how many faces I made, no matter how long I stood there, none of the people funneling around me had anything to say.


I wound up that day at the middle of an intersection, smack under the traffic light, with taxis honking and a car swerving off to the left and a pair of cops running to keep me from getting killed. At the police station, when my dad came to get me, he asked what the hell I'd been thinking.


I hadn't been thinking, actually. I was just trying to get to a place where I'd be noticed.


(Page 246-247 - Jesse's)



"Anna," Campbell says quietly, "what made you think that Kate wanted to die?"

"She said she was ready."

He walks up until he is standing right in front of me. "Isn't it possible that's the same reason she asked you to help her?"

I look up slowly, and unwrap this gift Campbell's just handed me. What if Kate wanted to die, so that I could live? What if after all these years of saving Kate, she was only trying to do the same for me?

"Did you tell Kate you were going to stop being a donor?"

"Yes," I whisper.

"When?"

"The night before I hired you."

"Anna, what did Kate say?"

Until now, I hadn't really thought about it, but Campbell has triggered the memory. My sister had gotten very quiet, so quiet that I wondered if she'd fallen asleep. And then she turned to me with all the world in her eyes, and a smile that crumbled like a fault line.

I glanced up at Campbell. "She said thanks."

(page 391-392, Anna's)


four thumbs up!