Book Review: My Sister's Keeper

I've wanted to read this book for a long time, and finally got around to it last week. It's not often a book has such significant personal relevance as this one does for me.

The book, for those (few) of you who have never heard of it, is about a family who's young daughter develops a very rare and deadly form of leukemia. In an attempt to help the sick daughter the parents use embryo screening to conceive another baby who will "match." Initially the plan is that just the baby's cord blood will be used to help the sister, but eventually the younger sister donates blood and bone marrow too. The story starts when she is 13 years old and meets with a lawyer, telling him that she wants to sue her parents for medical emancipation so that she won't have to donate a kidney to her sister.

The author does a good job of making you feel outraged in behalf of the younger sister who's been subjected to painful medical procedures to help her sister all of her life. Then she turns the tables and shows how conflicted the parents are; no parent wants their child to experience any pain, least of all pain that was optional. On the other hand, anyone who is a parent knows that you would do almost anything to give one of your children the chance to live.

As I started reading I felt hostility towards the parents for "using" their younger daughter. But as I kept reading and really thought about it, I realized that I would do the same thing in that situation. If there was something that one of my other children could do/give that would improve Cindy Lynn's health, I would definitely consider it. And if there was something that would save her life? How could I not try? (Want a lung, dear?)

I thought that Picoult also did a good job of showing that medical emergencies have a momentum of their own. When a crisis comes, there simply isn't time to sit around and debate the ethics or long term implications of different options. When the crisis comes, you do what is necessary to keep your child alive.

The other thing about the book that touched me deeply was the storyline of the older brother. Basically ignored from the time of his sister's diagnosis with leukemia, he embarks on a self-destructive path of drinking, drugs, smoking, and arson in a desperate and heart-breaking plea for someone to notice him.

I have often wondered about this in our family. Five of our children have had to deal with having a sibling with a life-shortening time-consuming genetic illness. Three of our children have had to deal with the birth of triplets. I know we have tried to be aware of the needs of all of our kids when we've been so preoccupied with the medical issues of one/some of our kids--but it is so hard. It simply isn't possible to be physically present in more than one place at a time, and in times of real stress sometimes it isn't possible to be mentally present even when you're physically present.

Definitely a book that made me grateful that my trials are no worse than they are...