My Sister's Keeper

The first book for this year and I’m thankful to all my friends who have been recommending “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult for years now. This is only the second book of Jodi Picoult’s that I have read, so rating it as her best wouldn’t be a well supported statement. But this was surely able to leave a huge imprint on my heart and fueled my wanderlust for the realms of thoughts and emotions I never knew existed.

When someone we love is seriously ill, all we want to do is to find ways to cure him/her in the best and quickest possible way. This situation is even a million times more intense for a parent, if the person in a critical condition is his/her child. Unfortunately, the same thing happened with Sara Fitzgerald. She once had a beautiful and happy life with a loving husband and her two kids, but that divine blessing wore off in just a few years. Shattering her whole world to pieces, one day they got to know that their youngest child, Kate, a 3 year old, is suffering from APL, a rare type of leukemia. Like any other parents, Sara and Brian go to supreme lengths, as much as humanly possible, to save Kate and that includes giving birth to Anna Fitzgerald, a sibling to little Kate, genetically designed so she would be the perfect match for a donor to her sister. Since her birth she becomes the her sister’s lifeline, donating whatever the doctors suggest, but at thirteen years of age she realizes that enough is enough. Anna, our protagonist, decides to file a case for Medical Emancipation. Would she win her case? Given the fact that she is the only one who could save Kate or at least give a chance for her to live longer, will it be a real win even if she does win?

“If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?”

“You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake.”

We can’t measure the love parents have for their children. No matter how the whole world treats us, we could always count on our parents about everything. Is that true for Anna, considering she has never been asked permission to be pricked with needles, so that she could give a chance of living to her sister? Do parents pick favourites out of their children, is Sara no different in that? Those would be just a few of the conflicts the story will make us wonder about and try to debate on, to bring out a fair judgement.

This isn’t the first story I have read about a cancer patient. Still, the story carves out its uniqueness by focusing on the lives of the family rather than on the cancer patient. It does contain a lot of details about the years that passed since they first got to know about the cancer and how all the medical treatments went, which gives good proof that the author has done a great deal of research on that. But we also get to experience all the calamities which can happen in a family when one of them is suffering from a critical illness, the sacrifices they make, the uncertainties which cloud around their happiness, all in all how hard it is to live a day as a normal family just like others. So, the story is practically a telltale of the emotional turmoil within the Fitzgerald household.

“Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.”

I always liked the first person narration of a story as it allows us to feel it more alive. Going a few steps further, the author has penned down the story as a collection of narrations by all the seven main characters. Evidently Picoult has done a great job in getting to the skin of each of these characters and bringing out each one’s perspective towards the story’s theme for us to feel. We get to look through each of their eyes and mind, which diminishes the possibility of a monotonous storytelling, as well as making it more sensitive and open minded about the issue which is addressed. I am no parent, so I can only imagine, but I think the story provides a well-reasoned view on each character’s decisions and actions. Even though we could expect the ending of the story, since it’s woven around a cancer patient, the plot twist will definitely hit you hard and question the judgement you had over the situations until then. It really swirls the story to a different dimension.

The book has a well-designed set of characters, an interesting way of narration and a strong plot. But I wasn’t really convinced about Anna’s character at some instances. Although she is 13 years old, her narrations were more complex and suitable for a grown up. True that her character was developed as a minor who is matured enough to take grown up decisions. In that case, her behaviour like an actual teenager, all the dilemmas she was going through, torn apart within her family, was not well-suited to the matured composure she otherwise dons.

“It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.. A girl who may not know what she wants right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves the chance to find out.”

One lesson the story teaches us is to try to put ourselves in others’ shoes, before being rude and judgmental based on what we see from the outside. We never know what goes on in others’ lives, which makes them who they are and what they do.

“There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth.”

Giving credits to the excellent piece of writing done by a talented author, I am excited to recommend the book to all the readers out there. Then again, on a second thought, I would also like to give a heads-up before you make the choice. “My Sister’s Keeper” would be a great read for the ones who like a good psychological thriller and are mentally prepared to get emotionally involved in the story of a family going through a lot of struggles and misfortune. So don’t forget to grab some tissues along with the book.

“It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have, we rarely get.”