My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult | Teen Ink

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

June 24, 2012
By Calla SILVER, Los Angeles, California
Calla SILVER, Los Angeles, California
5 articles 3 photos 3 comments

My Sister's Keeper was a good read, it kept me interested, and had a fitting ending. I loved how Picoult developed the characters. While many books that are narrated by more than one person in first person turn out to be duds or seem like they could have easily been written in third person. However, this book was meant to be written in multiple points of views. I love when the characters think. Picoult has a way of stepping into every single character's shoes. Many of the thoughts of characters are just...the only word I have is "perfect". Right on the dot.

However, there are a few things I did not like.

1. The whole Julia and Campbell romance. Picoult has a format. If you have read enough of her books, you'll fine the same things - overprotective mom, trial, lawyer subplot. The Campbell and Julia romance was very unrealistic and...just slightly pointless. I mean, you have a high school boyfriend, a serious one. Then, the boy has a seizure, diagnosed with epilepsy, doesn't want to tell the girl so she doesn't need to live with someone who has seizures, so both go their separate ways, many, many years later the girl (woman now) has been moping around about it for all those years. Wow.

2. If you have read this book, there is a part where Anna is just walking along and a hockey team needs someone to play goalie so they can practice shooting goals. Anna is ten then, and has never played hockey and as far as the reader knows, never ice skated. Well, she is so good that she is invited onto the team as a goalie. First of all, that would not happen for two reasons. One, really? Picking up a random little girl to have her play goalie? Why doesn't coach or someone on the team do it? Second, you don't know hockey and apparently, neither does Jodi Picoult. Hockey is a game in which you must know how to skate. You must. Even the kid who is nineteen and has played hockey since age four can't skate well enough. To play hockey, you need to know how to be ice skating without looking down, dribbling a puck, not looking at the puck - it's hard. And a goalie's job is harder. A goalie...even hockey players calls goalies crazy. A goalie needs to move side to side on ice and...it's just illogical. Why did Picoult put in that Anna played hockey? Because Anna is the goalie and she saves...and the book is about how Anna was born to save her sister. It's kind of forced, it seems like.

Well, Anna is invited to a camp for hockey and she cannot go because her mother wants her home in case Kate has an emergency or something. Somewhere in that part, there is a typo. The word "staff" is spelled "stafff".

3. The whole trial. Don't get me wrong. I loved the book, the idea, etc. However, the trial for the kidney...if Anna didn't want to, since she is thirteen she would not have to anyway. Even blood draws in the future, one, seriously Anna? It's a blood draw. You can do it, can't you? And two, she would not be legally obligated to have blood drawn for her sister. The kidney, not that's a major surgery and the loss of an organ. That, I understand, but she wouldn't have to to that anyway. She wouldn't have to do any of it. There was no point in her suing her parents.

Overall, I enjoyed My Sister's Keeper despite it's flaws. It is a good read for someone looking for a sappy emotional book.


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