My Sister's Keeper- A book review.

My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, is about Anna, the sister of a girl with a rare form of leukemia. Anna was concieved so that she would be a genetic match for her sister and therefore could be a chord blood and/or bone marrow donor for her sister. Anna's sister Kate wasn't expected to live more than a few years, however she beat the odds and has made it to 16 years old. Anna, now 13, has been a donor for her sister all her life, undergoing painful procedures. But her sister needs a kidney transplant due to all the treatments she's undergone, and their parents plan on having Anna donate one of hers. So (and this is the main story line of the book) she finds a lawyer to take her case so that she can petition a judge for medical emancipation from her parents. She is tired of being a body part supplier, and wants to be done with all of it, even if that means that her sister will die as a result.

I was originally attracted to this book mainly because I, also at age 16, had leukemia (though I had probably the most common form). The descriptions used of Anna's sister's experiences brought back a LOT of strangely similar memories. The book is narrated by the viewpoint of many different characters in the book, and was very effective in presenting all sides to the debate of whether it is legally, ethically and morally responsible to procede with a kidney transplant. I found myself teetering back and forth between rooting for Anna's rights as a person to not be used as a "supplier" and rooting for her mother, who out of love for both her children is anguished and torn at wanting to save one daughter's life and dealing with the lawsuit at hand. The desire to know ultimately what the judge decides is the only thing that kept me reading to the end of this book, as I found huge chunks of it completely unnecessary and rather annoying. There is a side-story of a relationship that the lawyer has with the guardian-at-lidem who is assigned to Anna's case by the court. The relationship is juvenile and annoying at best, and should never had been included in this book. Also, Anna's brother Jesse has a lot of emotional problems that are focused on in detail in this book, and they are somewhat valid in showing how he has been affected by his sister's illness, however again....it was unnecessary to the main story line and I found it annoying as well. So...all in all I give this book a GOOD. It was listed on the NY Times Best Seller list, but I'm guessing it was at the bottom of the list.