My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Genre: Adult Fiction
Audio book

All her life, 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald has helped her older sister Kate fight leukemia. Anna has provided platelets, bone marrow, and even stem cells to ensure Kate's survival. But when their parents ask her to donate a kidney, Anna has had enough. She enlists the aid of a lawyer and announces her intention to sue for control of her own body. Although she dearly loves Kate, Anna stands her ground, even as the drama builds toward a shocking climax.

I listened to this books as an audio book, and found it gripping from the first words. The circumstances of this story would normally have me ducking my head and running for cover. I try to steer very clear of anything that would deal with the hard parts of parenting - any kind of cancer is something I would naturally run away from. But due to the lack of audio books at my library, and the fact that I love this new past-time while I'm at work, I decided to give it a try.

Jodi did not disappoint - and I mean that on many levels. I am a big fan of character development. I love feeling like I know the characters inside and out when I'm reading books. I loved all the details, all the stories - many stories - weaving into one big story. I felt the story was about as accurate and real-to-life as a fiction book can get, as the topics, the characteristics and the entire subject is something that could actually happen in today's society. She did not disappoint also in the fact that, as I expected, there were very tender, hard areas of this book that, as a mother, I did not like to open up and think about. I personalize everything as much as I can, and being a mother - I think of my children. That is what made this book hard to read as well. The synopsis is not lying about the "shocking climax," and I believe even with its wild twist at the end - this books is wonderful and worth reading (or listening to).