Book Review:My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

We had my husband's colleague and his wife over for dinner some days back. As the evening progressed I told them about my avid interest in book reading. And so it turned out that they sent some books over for me which they thought were interesting. They sent three books - all by the same writer named Jodi Picoult.

I must confess that although i do read a lot, i hadn't heard about Jodi Picoult before (duh!!). So ‘My Sister's Keeper’ is her 1st book i have read. In fact as i kept reading i realized it was a first of many sorts. It is a book that is completely on a different level than any book i have read so far. It is so intense that i haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since i turned the first page of the book. The plot is so interesting; the book captures your interest the minute you read the synopsis. ‘My Sister's Keeper’ tells the story about a girl named Anna, who has endured countless surgeries and procedures ever since she was a month old infant in order to help her sister, Kate to fight leukemia. In fact Anna was brought into this world ("genetically designed") so she could be the perfect match, the perfect donor to her sick sister. Every time something goes wrong with Kate, Anna is used as the ultimate fix. Like borrow Lymphocytes from Anna or take her bone marrow and stuff like that. But now Anna is thirteen years old and is starting to question about who she truly is? Would she even be in this world at all if her sister wasn't diagnosed with leukemia? As then the need for a perfect donor would not have arisen. She instigates a lawsuit against her own parents so she can have medical emancipation (meaning she gets to decide about any medical treatment/procedure being done to her).

Could the plot get any interesting? Oh yes. As the book proceeds it unravels so many different facets to the characters in the story, so many ethical issues. Jodi Picoult has done an amazing job of telling the story through various characters. She proceeds with the story as if each character was speaking and giving his/her own version of the things. It’s surprising how she does justice to each character in the story. It’s not just an interesting plot, but a very carefully thought and well written story. The story holds all the elements that have rightly made it a bestseller. Kudos to Jodi Picoult for crafting such a sensitive story! A must read for every book lover. I am looking forward to reading more of her works.