My Sister's Keeper: A Novel by Jodi Picoult Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.25 You Save: $7.75 (52%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.19 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of My Sister's Keeper: A Novel
Book Review: Great story!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was pulled into this story immediately because 13 year old Anna was so alive and thoughtful. I identified closely with her, but also with all the characters--Piccoult's switching between points of view helped flesh out the story and added a dimension that might have caused this story to degenerate into a good guy/bad guy tale. Instead, I knew all of these people and my heart ached for them. It's been a long, long time since a book made me cry...but this one did. I can highly recommend this one as a thought-provoking and worthwhile read.Book Review: I Didn't Want it to End!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was riveting, touching and brilliantly written - I couldn't put it down! Jodi Picoult beautifully and skillfully tells the story of a close-nit family, that faces extreme tragedies and triumphs, based on the middle child's leukemia diagnosis at age 2 (the afflicted child, Kate is 16 when the story takes place). After she is diagnosed and needs a bone marrow transplant at age 2-2 1/2, her only other sibling (4 year Jesse) is not a suitable match. Her parents make a decision to conceive another baby who is genetically "engineered" to be a match for Kate. Most of the story takes place in the present, when the youngest sibling and donor, Anna, is now 13. She seeks legal representation when she decides (as far as the reader knows) that she wants medical emancipation from her parents, when she does not want to dontate a kidney to Kate, who is in renal failure at age 16. The story is told in flashbacks and we get to know this family as told from each of their perspectives, and get a heart-wrenching view of how devastating a child's illness is on an entire family. The legal, medical, psychological and familial aspects of genetic engineering and the moral/ethical questions that arise from it are geniously portrayed in this must read novel!!Book Review: Excellent book except for the end
Summary: 4 Stars
Critical reviews of this book have complained that the characterization of Sara, the mother devoted to saving her sick child no matter the cost to her other children, was poorly done, but honestly I thought this was a very true picture of a woman obsessed, and one of the truest characters in the whole book, however narrow-minded. She has extreme tunnel vision, and her charater reflects that. I would have liked to have read more of how that did or did not change after the 'surprise ending.'The book is well-written and up until the end, a very enjoyable, just-one-more-chapter-before-bed read. My biggest complaint about the narration was that all the characters 'read' like adults. A nice feature of the story is that each chapter is told from a different point of view. Each character has it's own voice, but each voice seems to come with the same life experience. Anna, while a mature thirteen year old, often uses references and metaphors out of synch with her life experience. There is a girlishness to her, but she often comes off sounding thirty and not thirteen.
My only other complaint was the ending, which might seem like a 'surprise' and and 'ingenius twist' to some, but really just struck me as a modern day 'deus ex machina' ending. Guess what, what you thought would happen didn't and what didn't think did, and no, we're just going to skip ahead to the future and gloss over the fall out. Maybe I just don't 'get it' but after reading such a carefully crafted book, the ending was rushed and it seemed to me that the author had this great 'twist' idea, but only after the first 98% of the book had been written. After all the building and deep writing, the almost shallow end disappoints.
I will provide the disclaimer that I am the type of person who is often critical of endings in general, and some people might really enjoy it. However, I would still recommend the book. It's worth getting to the end, whether you like it or not.
Book Review: Heartachingly wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
I discovered this book by accident while browsing. I had never heard of Jodi Picoult, but the title and the cover illustration caught my attention. As soon as I read the jacket blurb, I knew that I had to read this book. I started reading and before I knew it, the story was over and my kleenex box was empty. I suggested this book to the other women in my book club before my copy even arrived--I was positive that it was going to be something we needed to read, and so far we've all had the same reactions. The book draws you in and doesn't let go. By allowing almost all of the characters to narrate the chapters(notice the individual fonts for each character), you can really get a feeling for their personalities, with the exception of Kate (for reasons explained towards the end). Ms. Picoult has listed some discussion questions on her website that are thought-provoking. There are more; is Anna's name indicative of her role? Are certain things in life pre-destined and therefore inescapable? Who are we to "play god", but where do we draw the line when it comes to helping our loved ones? With life, do we measure by quantity or quality? At the end of the story, you are left pondering the title. Is Anna or is Kate "My Sister's Keeper"?
Book Review: Cue the violins for this Lifetime movie
Summary: 1 Stars
First rule of choosing a book: if the author's name is in larger type than the book's title, then it probably isn't very good. Jodi Picoult reached that point with her previous novel, Second Glance, and unfortunately this rule is holding true for her.Picoult's an excellent writer, but My Sister's Keeper is terrible. First she falls into her usual trap of assuming that her female target audience can't appreciate a thoughtful, well-told story without the inclusion of a romantic subplot - here it is even more tacked-on and gratuitous than in her other novels. Then she throws in a distracting gimmick - here, it is the lawyer's "shocking" medical secret, which is telegraphed from the beginning, has nothing to do with Anna's case, and after the buildup throughout the novel, is neatly deflated and disposed of after its "dramatic" use. Finally, she ends the book in such a way that all the chapters before are essentially pointless, as Picoult realizes she has painted herself into a legally correct but morally distasteful corner and needs a deus ex machina to fix the situation.
I really wanted to like this book - Picoult has a gift for description and if at times her dialogue is wooden, her ideas are intriguing enough to make her books compelling, one-sitting reads, even with their usual 400+ page length. But as in the past, I've raced through her latest novel only to be disappointed and vaguely disgusted at the end.