Glenda

My Sister's Keeper

** About The Book: **Anna Fitzgerald was brought into the world to be a genetic match for her older sister, Kate, who suffers from acute promyelocytic leukemia. Because of her sister's dependency on her, Anna is unable to live the life she wants; in and out of the hospital constantly, she cannot take part in extracurricular activities such as cheerleading or soccer. When Kate turns 13 she goes into renal failure. Knowing that she will have to donate one of her kidneys to her sister, Anna sues her parents for medical emancipation and the rights to her own body. Attorney Campbell Alexander agrees to work for Anna pro bono.

** About The Author: **Jodi Picoult studied creative writing with Mary Morris at Princeton, and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. Realism - and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent - led Picoult to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, as a copywriter at an ad agency, as an editor at a textbook publisher, and as an 8th grade English teacher - before entering Harvard to pursue a master’s in education. She married Tim Van Leer, whom she had known at Princeton, and it was while she was pregnant with her first child that she wrote her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale.In 2003 she was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction. She has also been the recipient an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association, sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist, one of ten books written for adults that have special appeal for young adults; the Book Browse Diamond Award for novel of the year; a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America; Cosmopolitan magazine’s ‘Fearless Fiction’ Award 2007; Waterstone’s Author of the Year in the UK, a Vermont Green Mountain Book Award, a Virginia Reader’s Choice Award, the Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award, and a Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award. She also wrote five issues of the Wonder Woman comic book series for DC.

Character and Conflict: Anna is sister Kate she has Cancer and Anna was genetically formed to be born and to help Kate with her illness by being a perfect match to donate to Kate. The fact of the illness is that it consumes the family’s life. So because the operations and consume Anna life she files a lawsuit on her parents for the right to her own body.

Theme:  If you love someone you have to be able to let them go- The younger sister knows that her sister doesn't want any more organs or blood; and has to make the choice to say no to her parents. It's not because she hates her, it's because she loves her and wants her to be happy.

Reviews:  Picoult’s latest chronicle of family travail (Second Glance, 2003, etc.) highlights the consequences of deliberately conceiving a child genetically compatible with a mortally ill sibling.The author vividly evokes the physical and psychic toll a desperately sick child imposes on a family, even a close and loving one like the Fitzgeralds. Picoult’s plotting, though, is less sure, as an inherently somber tale morphs into a melodrama with a too-neat twist. Anna Fitzgerald, the 13-year-old who begins the story, was conceived in vitro, and her embryo’s genetic makeup closely matched that of her sister Kate. Now 16, Kate was diagnosed at 2 with acute promyelocytic leukemia. In the years that followed she has suffered numerous relapses, despite the infusion of Anna’s platelets and bone marrow, even stem cells from her sister’s umbilical cord. Their parents, Sara and Brian, now want Anna to give Kate one of her kidneys; compromised by her drastic treatments, Kate’s organs are shutting down. Instead, Anna contacts attorney Campbell Alexander and asks him to represent her; she wants her parents to stop using her body to help Kate. Like elder brother Jesse, who’s turned his angst into arson and general bad-boy behavior, she has spent her life in the shadow of her sister’s illness—one year Kate had to be hospitalized on every holiday. Sara, who has made keeping Kate alive her life’s mission, is very angry, but Brian initially takes Anna’s side, feeling too much has been asked of her. A hearing is scheduled, though Anna is torn between her affection for Kate and what she feels must be done. As the hearing begins Kate is hospitalized, Jesse’s arson is discovered, and Anna initially refuses to testify. There can be no easy outcomes in a tale about individual autonomy clashing with a sibling’s right to life, but Picoult thwarts our expectations in unexpected ways. Despite over plotting, then, a telling portrait of a profoundly stressed family.-Kirkus

Brilliant. My Sister's Keeper is bittersweet, thought-provoking and poignant. The story is about Anna, a 13-year-old girl who is average in every way except for the circumstances of her life. Anna is a genetically engineered baby, designed to be a genetic match for her sister, Kate, who has acute leukemia. Anna has spent her life giving blood and bone marrow to Kate and is under pressure to give a kidney. Now Anna wants to sue her parents for the right to her body. Anna, her mother, her father, Jesse her brother, her lawyer and her guardian ad litum Julia (another law person) all tell the story from their own point of view. Through each character we are given their thoughts on the situation, their personalities and sub-stories. Though the main plot is Anna's lawsuit herself, we are given an insight into a family which has been wrecked by cancer and the results of it. Each character is fascinating in their own way, my personal favorite is Jesse, and they seem real. The point of this book is that the world isn't black or white and that is reflected in the characters. There are no good guys or bad guys .Serious moral and ethical debates are encompassed in this book and Picoult attacks them head on. There are the ones which you would expect in a book where cancer lies at its heart, about the terminally ill, stem cell research, genetically engineer babies, but what makes it far more engaging than someone telling you the pros and cons of each is that you get the choices told from a human viewpoint. None of these topics have a right or wrong answer which is presented here. However, there are more subliminal themes running through, such as one which will provoke an interest in our age group – should it be us or our parents who have the right to decide what's best for us?But here's a warning, this book is extremely sad, but don't let that put you off. It addresses the harshness of life and the fact life isn't fair. It may seem all doom and gloom but there are some sweet, funny and touching moments. You may think a book about a lawsuit would not be interesting but it's more than that. My Sister's Keeper is about sisterhood, choices and the sacrifices we all have to make in life.-guardian

Can parents force a reluctant child to become an organ donor for a fatally ill sibling? And if they can, should they? These are the questions powering Jodi Picoult's characteristically provocative, topical, and slightly bloated new novel, My Sister's Keeper -- a tense, high-concept piece of women's fiction in the tradition of Anna Quindlen and Rosellen Brown.The melodrama begins when 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald walks into a lawyer's office with $136.87, her life's savings, asking to be medically emancipated from her parents. Brian and Sara Fitzgerald designed Anna to be the perfect biological donor for her sister Kate, now 16, who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 2. As Anna puts it, ''I wasn't the result of a cheap bottle of wine or a full moon or the heat of the moment. I was born because a scientist managed to hook up my mother's eggs and my father's sperm to create a specific combination of precious genetic material.''Over the years, each time Kate relapses, Anna is dragged to the hospital to give her blood, lymphocytes, granulocytes, and bone marrow. Now, as Kate lies on her deathbed, Sara expects Anna to pony up a kidney. Anna, however, has decided that she's through. Nobody ever asked, she tells her lawyer.My Sister's Keeper crackles when the characters wrestle with unanswerable moral questions. The Fitzgeralds divide into opposing camps on the subject of Anna's lawsuit, and each has a compelling argument. Brian, who has long privately disapproved of the painful measures used to keep Kate alive, supports Anna's right to control her body. But Sara, who loves both of her daughters passionately, flies into a rage. I have one child who's just signed her sister's death sentence, she tells her husband, and I'm supposed to cool off? As the two sides square off, a new question arises: Whatever the official courtroom verdict, how will this ravaged family ever repair itself?Unfortunately, Picoult has overburdened an elegant and riveting premise with irrelevant sentimental subplots. Told from seven different points of view -- at least three too many -- the book plumbs the dreary inner life of Kate and Anna's troubled older brother, a budding arsonist whose complaints can't compete with the courtroom drama. The novel goes into even greater detail about the personal history of Anna's attorney and his reunion with a high school love. Soapy discursions like this dilute the effect of Picoult's sharp central narrative.A taut, issue-driven novel can't support many extraneous players. And in Picoult's hands, even the people crucial to the case-study plot -- all of them nice, generic middle-class types -- quickly lose their substance when you close the book. Like the B actors on Lifetime, Picoult's characters get the message across, but you won't remember them in a year, a month, or even a week.-ew

Works Cited Washington, Atria. ”My Sister’s Keeper." Rev. of My Sister’s Keeper. Jodi Picoult. Kirkus Reviews,15 Jan. 2003. Web. 17 May. 2012. Mcathy, Racheal. “My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult – review”. Rev. of My Sister’s Keeper. Jodi Picoult. The Guardian, 15 June. 2011. Web. 17 May. 2012. Reese, Jennifer.” My Sister’s Keeper.”Rev. of My Sister’s Keeper. Jodi Picoult. Entertainment Weekly. 6 Apr. 2006. Web. 17 May. 2012