My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

My Sister’s Keeper was an emotional read. It is about a young girl named Anna Fitzgerald who was born to save her sister’s life. Kate Fitzgerald has acute promyelocytic leukaemia, and Anna is her allogenic donor – she is a perfect sibling match. Whenever Kate relapses or is sick, and she needs bone marrow, cells, or anything to recover, Anna provides them. For 13 years this was the case, until Anna was asked to donate a kidney, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body, a decision no child could ever make easily.

The book begins with Anna’s musings not about how babies are born, but why. A perfect example of what impact witnessing the pains of cancer has on a young child. Picoult explores Anna’s philosophical questions; and being her sister’s lifesaver from the moment she was born, she has quite a few. What curiosities you may develop if you had to see pain and suffering almost every day. If you found yourself and your family in a life or death crisis often enough. If you had to give part of yourself away every now and then to help your sister survive. If you had to go through so many operations, hospital visits, injections, and drugs. Constantly surrounded by the frailty of life, when you’ve barely lived more than a decade yourself. If you had to build your life around your sister, making sure you stay healthy and nearby, just in case. Anna’s situation is filled with confusing, conflicting emotions and responsibilities. She loves her sister endlessly and, of course, would do anything for her. A sister’s love is infinite. But the affect of being her sister’s keeper is unavoidable.  

There’s an underlying, but overwhelming, theme of uncertainty that touches every corner of this story. The way it explores the reality of making difficult choices in life, the kind that make you question your own morality and intentions, is eye-opening. You realise the true gravity you carry in your hands when you have to make these life changing decisions knowing that it won’t just affect you, but everyone that you love too. How, even if you believe you have thought everything through, no one can ever know what will happen, or if you made the right choice or a big mistake. Picoult doesn’t hesitate to make you, as the reader, feel that gravity. It lies within the conversations had between characters, like a heavy weight hanging in the air, waiting for the right moment. Brian, Anna and Kate’s father, spent Kate’s college savings without his wife’s permission, “Sara, she’s not going to live long enough to use that money for college.” The weight drops instantly, and the book feels ten times heavier in your hands.

Sara Fitzgerald, Anna and Kate’s mother, narrates alongside Anna and a few other characters. Her point of view made my heart hurt a little every time. I kept imagining how deep her love as a mother ran for her to brave the trials she had to face. It is more than ocean deep, to say the least. You follow her through her journey from the very first hospital visit with Kate’s diagnosis, to the courtroom where her other daughter is testifying against her. Let’s just say, it’s not the kind of rollercoaster you would enjoy. Neither is that of Jesse Fitzgerald, Anna and Kate’s brother. Being the eldest sibling, he experiences a whirlwind of trials of his own. Picoult delves deep into the impact of child neglect, giving Jesse a rebellious, angry personality which quite literally manifests in raging fires. How ironic it is for Brian, a fire fighter, to have an arsonist son. You can imagine the charred father-son relationship they share, pun intended. Another heated relationship explored in this book is that of Mr Campbell, Anna’s lawyer, and Julia Romano, Anna’s Guardian ad litem and Mr Campbell’s high school girlfriend. Theirs is a complicated story, and as they are brought back into each other’s lives once again, you see how tricky working with an ex-lover can be with a relationship as broken as theirs. Though, it is romantic and heartfelt in its own way, nonetheless.

This is definitely not a light read. In between chapters, a sense of fondness for the Fitzgerald family is felt. Even when there’s undeniable tension and despair in the atmosphere, you can still feel the love the characters have for each other. I can say the ending is nothing short from flawless. It remains true to the frailty of life in every sense of the word. You’ll find that a sister’s love truly is infinite.

❤