title: My Sister's Keeper
author/editor: Jodi Picoult
reviewed by: Carol
MY SISTER'S KEEPER
This dramatic novel by Jodi Picoult is a real page- turner. Last winter it was chosen for the "One Book, One County" library reading program where I live.
It is about Anna Fitzgerald, a thirteen-year-old girl who sues her parents for medical emancipation so she won't have to donate a kidney to Kate, her sixteen-year-old sister who is dying of kidney failure after a life-long battle with acute promyelocytic leukemia, which is in remission.
The story is told from six different points of view. First, we hear from Anna who sets the plot in motion. Then, Campbell Alexander, the lawyer Anna hires to represent her, tells his story. Next, see the tale from the eyes of Anna's mother, Sara, and then her father, Brian. After a while, Anna's only other sibling, her eighteen -year-old brother, Jesse, tells his side of the story. Near the end, we hear from Julia Romano, the guardian ad litem, who carefully studies members of the Fitzgerald family. All of them relate how Judge DeSalvo conducts the trial. Finally, in the epilogue we get Kate's point of view.
This book also includes a small mystery: Why does Campbell have a service dog if he is not blind or noticeably disabled? And, it has a couple of romances, too. One is between Kate Fitzgerald and Taylor Ambrose. The other is between Campbell and Julia.
This story is a thicket of ethical and moral questions with a surprising ending. I couldn't put it down.
Carol says, "The ending shocked me. It didn't answer the questions I have about the sanctity of a dying person's wishes, but it did make it abundantly clear that we all change our minds."