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Readers' Comments
Here's
what people are saying about My Sister's Keeper
by Jodi Picoult, the North Reading Reads 2007
selection. What are your thoughts about the book? Please
send your comments to: mnr@mvlc.org.
Here are some
comments made by the Flint Memorial Library staff at their December
6th discussion of My Sister's Keeper. I can see
why the parents would conceive Anna, but I didn't like it...Her
parents think they love her; they do love her, but not enough...The
parents are in a bad spot. How do you quantify how much you love a
child?...Where do you draw the line with "designer babies?". You have to
feel for the older child...The father is more sympathetic than the
mother. Why?... I was
shocked by the ending, but what else could it have been?...The
ending was very disappointing. It says that's the only reason why
Anna was here...I'd call it a "trick ending"...The ending was a
shocker...You don't know what's around the corner...It serves as a
reminder that anything can happen... I had trouble
with the first person narration of each character. I got confused,
didn't always know who was speaking...I think the subplot about
Campbell and Julia helps to make the whole book more readable and
bearable. It would be almost too sad, if you just had the
story about Anna and Kate and their family... Is it too much
of a woman's book? It's a very relevant book. People
should be discussing these issues. How far are you going to take
things? The astronomy
theme was a bit of a distraction, for the good, actually. Anna
enjoyed that interest with her father, learning lessons about the
stars. It was a bright spot in her life.
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Members of the North Reading Book Discussion Club:
share their responses to My Sister's Keeper.
I read My
Sister's Keeper for a second time, and it was as heart-wrenching
this time as it was the first time. The author really spins an
original, believable tale of family turmoil and forgiveness.
Lois Waller
The author
tackles controversial issues. This
is a compelling story about a family with a seriously ill child and
the consequences of the actions that take to save this child.
It is a very thought-provoking book.
Ellen Casey
A riveting read
and I zipped through it in no time. However, when I got to the
ending I could not believe it and reread it just to make sure what
had happened. There are a lot of moral issues which are
brought in and it makes you wonder what you would do as a parent if
you were ever in that position.
Marilyn Henderson
Jodi Picoult's
novel, My Sister's keeper, is an absorbing story with a
controversial subject matter. It's extremely fascinating in the
manner in which she fills out each complex character.
The subject matter of bringing a child into the world primarily for
her parts is a very disturbing matter and she does an excellent job
of convincingly narrating both sides.
Janet M. Comerford
Once again Jodi
Picoult demonstrates her skills as a master storyteller...The
Fitzgerald family is torn apart by their daughter's/sister's
insistence on declaring her medical emancipation...The story is told
from each family member's point-of-view...The portraits are poignant
and masterfully written....In spite of the tragedy in this novel
there is also laughter and hope is the glue that binds everything
together.
Picoult presents the scenario/dilemma that in life sometimes
there are no black nor white answers; rather, a startling blend of
gray. In the end the reader may agree or disagree with her
solution to Anna's crisis. However, I am somewhat ambivalent
about the ending and felt it was somewhat contrived. It is a
problem without an easy answer.
One criticism I have is that I feel her novels are somewhat
formulaic. Picoult presents a problem wherein the cast of
characters involves teenagers. The resolution of the problem
takes the reader by surprise, and the reader is left with more
questions than answers.
Joan O'Donnell
I was eager to
read this book and knew it was proposed as the "North Reading Reads"
selection for important reasons: I believe those reasons lead to the
very important topic of bioethics and are shaped around some
universal emotions: Mothers who would do anything to lift a life-
threatening disease from their precious child, siblings who are
shadowed by an on going "crisis seemingly without end" in the family
and where do they fit - can they ever play an effective role and
will it be o.k. to laugh and have fun even when someone in the house
is dying and will God curse them for wishing that death to come;
fathers who find life has turned out anything but what they expected
when they decided (or were lucky enough) to become a father;
teenagers who hold new passions about life up to the daylight (and
moonlight) and even try them on for size -- these are the essentials
of this particular story. Though it is a novel, it is happening all
around us. The hospitals are full of children in these circumstances
-- perhaps not with a genetically made sibling to harvest cord
blood, platelets and even a kidney, but they are there all the same
- waiting to be well. The novel moved me and stirred old feelings in
me of when our daughter was desperately ill when we first moved to
North Reading in 1975. It is my view that the book (which I loved)
was missing some important people who are around the edges of most
tragedies and are essential to our emotional health. Neighbors who
bake, best friends and new friends who sit up with you, the
grandparents who are splitting in two themselves with agony - but
step forward to help bring balance to an out of kilter family,
brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, nieces and nephews
who do their best to "be there" for you, prayers from people far and
wide (people you've never met) and the church family when one is
lucky enough to be part of a faith community. These are the
essentials that supported our time of crisis and many of North
Reading's good people did that for us - I won't ever forget. The
lawyer, the judge, the guardian ad litem, the twin sister,
the antics of the teenage brother -- they are a microcosm of the
story each of us has, but not many of us get to write our stories.
So, in the area of bioethics and harvesting body parts for the
benefit of others - there is precedent, but we are on new ground
with the ability to genetically engineer new beings. The discussions
will be educational to us all and I look forward to hearing them and
participating. Who knows what tomorrow will bring to any of us. We
must keep an open mind and hope for the best.
Carol Lundgren
Return to North Reading Reads 2007
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