My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I borrowed Jodi Picoult’s “The Pact” from the library. I returned it unread three weeks later. Oh how I regret my decision now. “My sister’s keeper” is one awesome book with great storyline and characters. It’s simply superb.

The underlying theme of this novel is whether it’s ethical or non-ethical to design a baby’s genetic. Anyway, let me tell you a little bit of the background of this novel.

Brian and Sara Fitzgerald have two children, Kate and Jesse. Jesse’s the classic delinquent son who never fails to break any school rules. Kate’s the sick one. At the age of three she has been diagnosed with leukemia, or simply put, blood cancer. Imagine the horror that Brian and Sara faced as a parent to a dying child. Parents aren’t supposed to bury their child after all.

Jesse’s bone marrow (??) isn’t a match. Now, Jesse’s Kate only sibling and the only alternative at that time was to wait for donors. Brian and Sara ain’t gonna wait. The longer they wait, the more serious Kate’s condition becomes. And then Dr. Chance (Kate’s doctor) mentioned that right after one of her patient’s mom got pregnant and somehow her patient’s new sibling’s bone marrow is a match. This gives them an idea.

Brian and Sara went to this geneticist to design their unborn child’s genetic so that it matches Kate’s. In other words, the unborn child is the key to Kate’s recovery and nine months later, Anne is born.

As soon as Anne’s old enough, she began to understand the purpose of her existence. If it wasn’t for Kate’s illness, she would still be somewhere in heaven by now and wouldn’t be brought to the world. At the beginning, I thought that Anne despises Kate and that she tried to kill her on purpose. But as the story progresses, you can see that Anne and Kate are like any other sisters. They fought over CDs, clothes and everything else. And they love each other dearly.

All things were great at first. Anne provides all the things that Kate needed for recovery until bam! Anne couldn’t take it anymore and decided to sue her parents. After supposedly flicking through the Yellow Pages, enters Campbell. Campbell decided to be Anne’s attorney on pro bono basis…in other words; Anne does not have to pay a dime on his service. Anyway, all goes well and Anne eventually won the case. Well, not really. She didn’t live through her high school graduation day. In the end, Anne did just what her parents intend her to do…..she saved Kate’s life

As a reader, I have come to hate Brian and Sara. Especially Sara. Is it right for a parent to kill his/her child just to save the other? Seriously, I don’t think Anne deserve to go through all those painful process just to help her sister. What the hell, Sara even expects Anne to donate one of her kidneys to Kate. With only one kidney, I doubt that Anne would be able to play hockey, a sports that she loved dearly, let alone live till 80.

Overall, I would say that if you’re looking for a novel with great storyline, then Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper is the novel that you have been looking for.

Hmm….am gonna hunt for Picoult’s The Pact at the library ASAP. It should be as good as My Sister’s Keeper.