Feb Book: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

[cookiemom]

Hey everyone. I decided to choose My Sister's Keeper for the Feb Book.

I hope everyone will enjoy it.

Debbie

[Bethers]

I finally got my copy of this book today. Loaned it to Sparkle to read first, then I will. Am really looking forward to reading it.

Have you got your copy yet????

[cookiemom]

Beth,

I did get the book from the library.

I like the story so far, and can't wait for everyone else to get started reading the book.

Debbie

[Sparkle]

Oh my God! I just finished that book and I'm emotionally drained! I even skipped Line Dancing because I couldn't put it down. One night I got up and started reading again. Very thought provoking.

[kelpie]

I read this one several years ago and like it very much. She is an unusual author in that many of her books are about very timely controversial subjects and she gets you to think about them in completely new ways. But every 4th or 5th books she writes a really strange one. I wonder why that is? And which ones are more representative of the real her? Anybody else know what I mean? I remember stories but not always titles - she wrote one called The Pact the first one I ever read and did not like. So I didn't read anything else for years. Then my cousin recommended some specific titles and now I'm a big fan. She wrote one about humpback whales which was strange and one about a cartoonist(fairly recently, but not her latest) Anybody read any of these?

[cookiemom]

The only other Jodi Picoult book I have read is Vanishing Acts. I'm undecided if I will read another of her books.

I don't really like the way she flips from present time to years before and back again all from each characters point of view.

I did enjoy both stories just not how they were written.

I think I will probably read another of hers to try to decide. Do you have a suggestion which of her others are better?

Thanks

[kelpie]

Debbie - I am terrible at remembering titles but I promise to do some research and get back to you. If I forget, remind me in a couple days.

[Paulette]

Checked out My Sister's Keeper at the Library on Tuesday night. Finished it last night! Yes, emotionally draining. Yes, very good book. Does make you think and wonder if "There but for the Grace of God go I". Hmmmm. I'm ready for the discussions whenever they start.

[cookiemom]

Is everyone finished reading the book that is planning on it?

We will wait if need be.

Let me know,

[cookiemom]

Okay, all of the questions I have will be from Jodi Picoult's website.

Do you think Anna did the right thing, honoring Kate's wishes?

Do you feel it was unfair of Kate to ask Anna to refuse to donate a kidney, even though this seemed to be the only way for her to avoid the lifesaving transplant?

[mtngal]

Oh gosh this was such an intense book, I probably really need to read it again to absorb more of the conflicting stories, personalities, family dynamics.

Re: the two questions, I will be looking forward to hearing other's views. For me, no judgments about what the girls each choose to do. It seems like they were both little more than pawns of the parents. I'm not sure either really had a choice.

[Bethers]

Ohohoh, as to those questions - I'm not a good book clubber in that I've disliked these formal questions that get asked LOL -

But - I'll give a couple cents worth to answer them, then I'll say what I want to say.

Do you think Anna did the right thing, honoring Kate's wishes? Yes

Do you feel it was unfair of Kate to ask Anna to refuse to donate a kidney, even though this seemed to be the only way for her to avoid the lifesaving transplant? No and Yes

OK, I'm going to say I loved this book and absolutely HATED the ending of the book. It ended with the parents (well, the Mom) getting what she always wanted. While most of the book followed what could have and has happened realistically - it ended with Kate basically healed - by a kidney - which could never have healed her - it could only have helped her kidney - not anything else to do with the disease.

That said, this book made me mad MAD MAD sometimes. At one point I put the book down for a couple days because I was so frustrated and mad at the Mother - that I had to walk away from it. When she would say she loved her children equally, no, she didn't. Everything she did was for Kate and only for Kate. When she wouldn't let Anna sign up to go to that hockey summer camp I wanted to lose it.

Anna was born to be a donor, and that's the only way her mother could love her. Sad, she had to die to prove it. As I said, Mom won, didn't she?

[Sparkle]

I think someone should have noticed that the Mom needed counseling. She got the bit between her teeth about saving Kate and developed tunnel vision. Her son was ignored, her second daughter, used. The father was a nonentity. I too hated the ending. Mom won, and although the author says at the end she asked for advice, I too thought it was unrealistic. And it ended the way it began, Mom and Kate. Still no word about the son or the father. So if we take it a step further, Kate wants to get married, or even move out for a life of her own, what will the mother do then? I think her attitude would be, you owe me! I gave up everything for you.
All that said, I really enjoyed the read. So many books just pass the time. This one engaged our emotions...and then some!

[Sparkle]

Checked out and then realised I hadn't answered the question. Kate should have been able to tell her mother that she was done with surgeries and treatments. But her mother was so domineering Kate knew she couldn't talk to her. Oh, I was also mad at the Doctors. Not one of them thought about Anna, or of saying, let Kate go, we've done all we can. They used to call pneumonia, the old man's friend. Now they can treat it and people are left to suffer a long slow painful death.

[Paulette]

I agree that as the girls aged it should have been a decision that each of them could have made on their own, not something that was just expected of them.