My Sister's Keeper Review by Emma

Recently, I read the novel My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Piccoult. The book focuses on a thirteen-year-old girl named Anna, who was born to be a genetically matched donor for her older sister, Kate, who has a rare form of leukemia. After having donated blood, bone marrow, and stem cell and going through countless medical procedures throughout her life to help keep Kate healthy, Anna decides to go to a lawyer and take up a case against her parents for medical emancipation, meaning that she will have the right to refuse an upcoming kidney transplant that may save her sister’s life. The readers jump between the points of view of a variety of different characters, including Anna; her mother and father, Sara and Brain; her brother, Jesse; and her lawyer, and, as the story unfolds, we learn through flashbacks and descriptions of the present day about each character’s complex worldview, their personalities, and the effect of Kate’s illness on them, and each character’s individual storylines lead to the climax of the story, Anna’s court case.

Overall, I would say that My Sister’s Keeper was a pretty good book. In particular, I thought that switching between the viewpoints of all of the important characters except Kate was a really effective and interesting choice. The author did a really good job giving each character a distinct voice (and adding to this illusion by assigning each character a different font, which was a little bit jarring at first, but definitely allowed me to pick up where I left off and orient myself right away), and I think that this style of writing works well to create an entire set of characters that are deep, well-developed, and interesting. Another aspect of the book that I thought was done really well was getting the reader to sympathize with each character, even though their views are often completely contradictory. The best example of this would be the main ethical question at the heart of the story: is it fair for Anna to have had her entire life, from her conception, revolve around keeping Kate healthy and safe, and should she be free to stop playing this role if she chose to? For some, it might be hard to first imagine sympathizing with a girl who’s willing to let her sister die to have freedom over her medical and lifelong decisions, and for others, it may likewise be difficult to imagine a mother desperate enough to save her daughter that she would bring another child into the world for the specific purpose of providing her sister with organs or blood. However, because we see so much of both Anna’s and her parents’ (particularly her mother’s) worldview throughout the story, we can begin to understand how both of them are motivated to come to this conclusion. This is where the multifaceted narration works really well, as it helps the reader understand and sympathize with multiple characters on conflicting sides of such a complex ethical issue.

A final aspect of the story that I enjoyed is that it maintains its momentum really well, and it was one of those books that I found myself having trouble putting down. The majority of the story builds towards the big central question of why Anna doesn’t want to donate her kidney. We slowly learn about Anna and Kate’s lives, piece by piece, until finally near the end of the book, everything comes into focus. However, even after the biggest question in the book is resolved, there are still a few more twists in the story. In particular, the final events of the book’s ending completely blindsided me, but, despite being a big shock, it felt like the story leading up to that point had earned it. (I would even argue that it’s one of those books like To Kill A Mockingbird where the ending kind of  makes the entire book. That being said, I wouldn’t start reading My Sister’s Keeper expecting it to be as good overall as To Kill A Mockingbird.)

Overall, I would recommend My Sister’s Keeper, and I enjoyed it a lot as the type of book you could pick up and read a lot of without difficulty. I also thought it raised some interesting ethical issues, and dealt with them in a way that allowed you to come to your own opinions and conclusions.