Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper
I have just finished reading this book last weekend. Verdict: Awesome! Can't wait to see the movie version. I especially love the style of writing - light and fast paced, even though the whole book revolved around issues like family relationship, lawsuit, designer babies, organ donation, sickness and death. Yes, all in one book.
Contain spoilers.
The story is about Anna, conceived as a perfect DNA match for her sister, Kate who suffers from a rare form of leukemia. Anna, who is 13, wants to seek medical emancipation from her parents because she feels that her body was being used to save Kate without her total consent. She is torn between saving her sister and also saving her own life. She is torn between loyalty and love to her family but freedom to her own body. What brought her to this decision was because Kate's condition grew worse and the only solution is to harvest a kidney from Anna. Anna feels a violation of her own body but have no choice but to go along with her parents' suggestions. This is basically the premise of the story.
The story gives the reader a lot to think about. Saving a life is important but one must also think about saving oneself or should we put these selfish thoughts away and save the one we love selflessly and unconditionally? Perhaps Anna feels these things because she is young and felt that life had been unfair to her, all she wants is a normal childhood and that her parents would love her rather than just look at her as a cattle for harvest.
Being parents are hard. But being parents to terminally sick child is hard work. They have to make hard and unpopular choices just to save their child. But will this be a conflict of interest when they use their other child to save their sick child? Would you have another child just to harvest her organs to save her sister? Isn't that ethically wrong? I feel that this was not explored thoroughly in the book, but was covered by so much drama going around with the lawsuit, the complexity of the trial because Anna's mother, Sara was a lawyer and became the defence attorney against her daughter, everybody's emotion in the story, the subplot about the lawyer and guidance counselor, etc. I feel that Sara is concerned only about saving Kate but neglect both Anna and her oldest son, Jesse, who become rebellious and started to become an arsonist.
But read the book to find out more about the story and how it ends. It has a surprising twist , but still a sad ending. The ending is a convenient ending, I must say, because everything just falls into place. You either love or hate the ending. I did not like the ending, but I suppose it gives hope to something which feels impossible at first glance.
But Cameron Diaz as the mother??? I don't think she is suited to play a mother, but I might be wrong. I still want to see the movie and see if it is as good as the book.
Now reading another of Jodi Picoult's book: Second Glance.
The story gives the reader a lot to think about. Saving a life is important but one must also think about saving oneself or should we put these selfish thoughts away and save the one we love selflessly and unconditionally? Perhaps Anna feels these things because she is young and felt that life had been unfair to her, all she wants is a normal childhood and that her parents would love her rather than just look at her as a cattle for harvest.
Being parents are hard. But being parents to terminally sick child is hard work. They have to make hard and unpopular choices just to save their child. But will this be a conflict of interest when they use their other child to save their sick child? Would you have another child just to harvest her organs to save her sister? Isn't that ethically wrong? I feel that this was not explored thoroughly in the book, but was covered by so much drama going around with the lawsuit, the complexity of the trial because Anna's mother, Sara was a lawyer and became the defence attorney against her daughter, everybody's emotion in the story, the subplot about the lawyer and guidance counselor, etc. I feel that Sara is concerned only about saving Kate but neglect both Anna and her oldest son, Jesse, who become rebellious and started to become an arsonist.
But read the book to find out more about the story and how it ends. It has a surprising twist , but still a sad ending. The ending is a convenient ending, I must say, because everything just falls into place. You either love or hate the ending. I did not like the ending, but I suppose it gives hope to something which feels impossible at first glance.
But Cameron Diaz as the mother??? I don't think she is suited to play a mother, but I might be wrong. I still want to see the movie and see if it is as good as the book.
Now reading another of Jodi Picoult's book: Second Glance.
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