My Sister's Keeper
by Jodi Picoult
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jodi PicoultEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-19
ISBN: 1439157383
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Book Reviews of My Sister's Keeper
Book Review: 3 compelling characters only if you count the dog
Summary: 1 Stars
I am tempted to give this book two stars because it began well, and then I realize that the negative stars garnered by the ending brings the average somewhat lower. I am not opposed to books with unhappy endings, but I am totally opposed to books with endings that are stupid. A Q&A blurb in the back of the book stated that the author had chosen that ending because it was the only way to end the book in a way that was medically realistic. The ending was medically unrealistic to the point of being laughable. Curiously, the same blurb also stated that the author's own offspring hated the ending; the author insinuates that he did not enjoy how sad it was, but I believe she may simply be overlooking the extreme likelihood that he simply thought it sucked.
The characters for the most part were annoying and did nothing to inspire interest. Anna and Jesse were compelling, inasmuch as Anna is a convincingly confused and unhappy protagonist and Jesse is convincingly dysfunctional from years of being ignored. Sara, the mother, is just beyond terrible at being a good parent or even a good person. At every turn, she is insensitive and dismissive of anything that is not her sick child, which seems acceptable until you realize that there are two other children in the picture just as needy and deserving of love and attention as the sick one. It is made clear that she does not have enough of herself to go around, and you know what? That is just too bad. Those other two kids aren't going away just because someone's sick, and you better believe that with a lifetime of this to deal with, some effort at setting priorities has got to be made. Sara is also not even remotely grounded in reality; an excellent example of this occurs at the rare holiday the family isn't in the hospital. When breaking the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey, Anna is told ominously by her mother, "You know what to wish for." As if one wish made on a wishbone will in some way affect the outcome of the other daughter's illness. That, right there, is sick and deranged.
Julia (guardian-ad-litem) not only fails to do her job, she spends most of the time she should be doing her job contemplating her ex, the improbably named attorney Campbell Alexander, who is average at best. Every time the story focused on their past, it began to drag, like slogging through marshland. Their relationship is boring and overwrought, and essentially boils down to Julia still being wounded by the breakup that occurred in high school, even though she is allegedly a successful professional woman who has had like a decade to get over it. In truth, I hate her for this; even if I could look past how terrible she is at something that is supposedly her career, I find it hard to believe she could still be so hung up on some loser ex-boyfriend from high school. Speaking of whom, the only thing interesting about Campbell is that he has a service dog, which he closely guards his reason for having. This is amusing at first but loses its charm long before the nature of his medical malady is revealed.
I've saved one character in particular for last: Brian, the father. I cannot speak to the accuracy of the fire-related scenes; but I am the daughter of a paramedic, and some of the parts involving this supposed firefighter-paramedic were ludicrous. No responsible paramedic would allow a minor to accompany them on a call, nor to assist in patient care as occurred in the book. Aside from emotional trauma to the child, the patient could completely and totally sue the city, the fire department, and very likely the individual as well. Furthermore, the statement that he believes his cancer-riddled daughter will recover, from complete renal failure and a lifetime of seriously damaging cancer treatments in addition to the cancer itself, because he has seen people awake from deeply hypothermic states and that is a miracle, is patently absurd. Any paramedic worth their salt can tell you that hypothermia victims actually can, and do, recover in this fashion; the extreme cold slows the metabolism and essentially puts the person into hibernation. This is in no way comparable to cancer and renal failure; while people can in extremely rare circumstances go into spontaneous remission from cancer, renal failure is irreversible.
Nearly everything in this book lost its charm long before the end. I felt quite geared up for a stopping point at about the halfway mark. Everything beyond that point, and quite a lot before, was basically worthless drivel. I will grant you this; the author is no doctor and clearly did not listen very hard to any she may have consulted, but the horrendous inaccuracies contained in this book could have easily been avoided with a ten minute trip to Wikipedia and a serious reduction in wishful, nonsensical thinking. This is a book that pretends to perpetuate hope, when in actuality it peddles little more than false hope and fanciful ideation with an overly lavish sprinkling of melodrama and asinine finger-pointing.
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