This was the first Jodi Picoult book I've read, for no better reason than that I perceived her more as a Doubleday author (read: pot-boilers) rather than a Quality Paperback Book Club author (read: critical acclaim). And I'm pretty sure I've been missing out.
This was a great book, one I read after a friend recommended it and I became intrigued by the moral quandary presented by the plot: to save one child, is it fair for a parent to authorize the taking of blood, tissue and body parts from another...especially if the donor is not entirely sure they want to participate?
The Fitzgeralds are in the place parents never want to be: for more than 14 years, they've been fighting for the life of their oldest daughter, Kate, who has an acute form of leukemia. As the story opens, Kate is nearing death from renal failure, and the last remaining option for treatment is transplanting a kidney from her younger sister, Anna. Trouble is - after years of donating blood, bone marrow, and other tissue for her sister's treatments - Anna has sued her parents for medical emancipation, saying she doesn't want to donate the kidney.
Enough of a drama to make you want to keep reading, even without the added complication of an attorney hiding a secret vulnerability and faced with the reappearance of the long-lost love of his life, a free spirit he met in prep school who has come back into the picture as Anna's temporary guardian.
When recapped that way, it may sound a bit too much like the standard modern romance formula. But there's a heartfeltness about the relationship that keeps you reading as much for the subplot as for the main one, and that would be missed if it wasn't there.
Picoult tells her story using the voices of everyone in Anna's family, as well as her attorney and guardian, a handy tool that not only keep the story fresh but keeps every character in the reader's sympathies. By the time you're drawn into the heart of the story, it's hard to root for one side over another.
That's part of the story's appeal; the other is an unexpected and lovely use of metaphors and parallels. Anna's father Brian, is a firefighter who's in love with astronomer, and in his hands a raging fire or the Greek myths he thinks of when he looks to the skies mirror the family's emotional turmoil.
At the penultimate moment, you can't help but wonder how Picoult will choose to resolve the story, since a happy ending, in this scenario, is highly unlikely. In the end, the resolution is an unexpected and melodramatic plot twist that keeps the story from falling into a rut, but also left me feeling dissatisfied. I think it was just a little bit too much of a tearjerker to feel good about...I think I would rather have had the story come through a less tidy but more expected resolution. But in a way, it was a triumph of the author's ability to keep her readers on board through an emotional journey.
I know there is a movie adaptation of this book, but I'm a little reluctant to see it. Not only does it sound like it would require two boxes of Kleenexes, I'm not sure the pictures could match the depth of the words on the page. But there are some times when movies exceed expectations, so I may read up on it and give it a try...probably without my husband, who steers a wide berth around any movies focused on sickness and death, especially after becoming a father.
And as a mom, my deepest wish is that this story was only an exercise in the theoretical - that, as mother Sara says in My Sister's Keeper, we'll never become the family you read about where a child or young mother is fighting disease, that story that at once fills you with sympathy and makes you thankful it's not you. Because really, it's the luck of the draw.
In the end, that's probably why I read the book - I am thankful it's not us, but I know that it could be. Regardless, this read just might have made a Picoult fan of me. Next stop, the library.
