My favorite works of art come in the form of words. Jodi Picoult is a well known author and has recently been in the spotlight for her piece My Sister's Keeper. Jodi has a way with words, a way to make you emotionally involved in the occurances, a way to make the unique but realistic characters seem like your co workers, friends and family. She also has the wonderful capability to intertwine that romantic storyline with current societial issues. Jodi researches many different topics that are important to us and will be important to us in the future. In My Sister's Keeper, readers get a look into the life of a family wrestling with the questions: Is it right to infringe on one of our daughter's lives and possibly harm her to save the life of our other sickly oldest daughter? Was it right for us to have our second daughter a product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, so that she would match her siblings bone marrow?
The family appers to be like any other, but they are different, they are plagued with many problems. Kate is the youngest of the children, and is the main character of the book. She has gone through many medical procedures to help her older sister fight her chronic leukemia, but none of those procedures and surgeries have ever been done with her real consent. The girls' oldest brother uses drugs and alcohol to escape from his family's "problems" thus adding to the stress of the parents. The novel follows the struggles of daily life, a loved one with cancer, an older brother with substance abuse issues, the complicated and sudden life analyzations forced upon the married couple, as well as the federal trial for Kate to recieve medical emanicpation from her parents. With an ending that is almost guareenteed to make a couple tears be shed, this wonderful piece of art is a must read.
