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Dec 17, 2009

Lindsay rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

73 comments like (258 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Lisa rated it:

As I said before: I'm still reading this book but I'm not sure why. My mom lent me the book and she loved it, everyone tells me they loved it and I'm sort of hating it while I read. I just want to finish it and move on. Maybe I'll change my tune when it's over.

Well... I hate it less, but I'm still not in love with it. I think I know the problem, though. It's Jodi Picoult. My mom loves her, my sister loves her, everyone I know loves her and I can't stand her. She just writes in More...

25 comments like (133 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Lobeck rated it:

this book is a shameless and unskillful manipulation of human emotions. i felt dirty when i was done with it. the story is on par with cheap natural disaster movies like deep impact that are formulated to tug at your heartstrings in very predictable ways. the author painfully over uses the dramatic blackout technique where she writes a line that's trying too hard to be clever or profound and then fades to black - aka, leaves extra space before the next paragraph or ends a chapter - sometimes More...

12 comments like (90 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

This book was stunning. In writing, in style, in plot, in character! It truly is one of those books that you really can't stop reading. Especially for me, because in a way it took me back to my Lurlene McDaniel days. Did anyone ever read her? She was always writing books about different teenagers and young children with terminal illnesses. I was addicted to those books. So it was no surprise when the young reader in me sort of jumped up when I saw a friend of mine reading this book and she descr More...

11 comments like (53 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2011

K.D. rated it:

My first book written by Jodi Picoult (born 1966) and I had mixed feelings about it. I don't know if I hate or love it so I just rate this with 2 stars that in Goodreads means, It's okay.

I have a friend in the office who is a solid Jodi Picoult fan. She encouraged me to read this a couple of years back as my intro to Picoult's world. I took the book home, read the first 10 pages, closed it and gave the book back to her the following morning. My reason? I did not like the 13-y/o Anna More...

27 comments like (26 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2008

Nola rated it:

I hate novels where parenting is questioned, simply because I too often find myself thinking, “Well I would never do THAT.” I then have to do the whole knock-on-wood routine and hope that I didn’t just invite divine retribution for being too judgmental. So it was with Jodi Picoult’s novel My Sister’s Keeper. After reading the summary of the novel, I knew that I would never make the choices that the parents shown did. After reading the novel, I found myself questioning what I might really do if More...

3 comments like (49 people liked it)

Jul 12, 2011

Mitabird rated it:

My Sister's Keeper was one of the most heart wrenching stories I've ever read. Anna's sister, Kate, is dying from a rare form of leukemia. She was conceived as a genetic match to help save her sister's life. It was supposed to be a one-time deal, but over the course of her 13 years, Anna has donated multiple times. Her sister is in need of a kidney and Anna's decided she's had enough of being told how to use her body. She decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation and refuses to give up More...

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Bex rated it:

Ugh- I've read some of these reviews and people keep saying great story- the end sucked... 4 stars! Okay- the ending sucking is a bit of an understatement. It was probably the worst ending to anything I've ever read or seen in my whole life- and I've watched UltraViolet and Sunshine and read some pretty terrible books.

Picoult rambles- and rambles. She takes a family, smacks them with the most typical "dysfunctional family" stereotypes and then add a topic that *should* be i More...

3 comments like (43 people liked it)

Jun 03, 2010

Penny rated it:

Anyone who has a kid has probably, at one point or another, battled with them at bedtime. That's what I do, every night. There is much yelling, crying, begging and pleading. It's horrible.

Kid #3 is out like a light, so she's not part of the problem. Kid #2 puts up a good fight, whining and tantrum throwing, but eventually she succumbs to her sleepiness. Kid #1, however... well, she's another story altogether.

At night, she's afraid of everything and feels that if sh More...

11 comments like (43 people liked it)

Sep 17, 2007

Sharon added it

it would be impossible for me to overstate how much i hated this book. I hated, hated, hated this book. I guessed the end 5 pages into it, but read it through anyway (why?)(probably because everyone else in nursing school was reading it and wanted to tell me how good it was. Never trust nurses). Interesting for the medical information, and if it convinced one person to become an organ donor it served its purpose in the world, but man, was it hard to read. It was trite and simplistic and written More...

6 comments like (31 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2009

Lynn rated it:

**If you're planning on reading this book, don't read my review. I give away the horribly disappointing ending. On second thought, don't read this book, read my review.**

I know several people who have read this book, so I decided to give it a go. I was immediately intrigued by the subject of the book. The Fitzgerald family has one daughter, Kate, dying of kidney failure. The kidney failure is a result of her weary body's 14 year battle with a rare form of leukemia. Their other More...

26 comments like (98 people liked it)

May 14, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

If you haven't read the book it's about a girl (Kate) with leukemia whose parents had a second genetically matched child (Anna) to help with blood and bone marrow to save their first daughter. As the girls grow up, more and more is required of Anna until she's had enough of being nothing but an organ donor.

There are a lot of interesting points in the book, like what do you do when you have to pick one child over another, how do you balance your time and love between children especia More...

8 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Peregrinn rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

4 comments like (27 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Madeline rated it:

The conflict alone is what makes this book fascinating - the story focuses on two sisters, Anna and Kate. The older sister, Kate, was diagnosed with leukemia when she was four. Knowing that their daughter would need blood donations, bone marrow, and possibly organ donations in the future, Kate's parents had another child whose sole purpose would be to provide a blood match for Kate. Thirteen years later, Anna gets tired of spending almost all her time in hospitals, giving bone marrow and blood t More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2010

Mery rated it:

Jika kau menggunakan cara yang salah secara moral untuk menyelamatkan hidup anakmu, apakah itu menjadikanmu ibu yang buruk?

bagaimana menjawabnya?
Aku harus kasih bintang berapa?
Aku harus komen apa?
Buku ini bikin aku terenyuh dari awal sampai akhir...
Bikin marah dan menangis di waktu yang sama...

Begitu tersentuh dengan kegigihan Sara memperjuangkan nasib Kate yang menderita leukimia APL akut, sampai dia harus melahirkan seorang anak dengan rekayasa g More...

34 comments like (18 people liked it)

May 26, 2010

Maggie rated it:

An ethical quandary, a family's dynamic, and a poignant love story. I laughed out loud, I sobbed. Truly powerful. Bravo, Ms. Picoult.

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Rita rated it:

Spoiler Alert. This review contains spoilers.

I hated this book so much. I only kept reading it because I had to find out why Campbell, the lawyer, had a service dog, since he kept that such a secret.

I hated the clichés (Julia chose just that moment to crash through the door… Anna chose that precise moment to speak up… Rita chose this moment to gag on bad writing…).

I hated the overwrought melodrama. Everything was just so saturated with heavy-handed tear- More...

7 comments like (30 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

April rated it:

I read this for a book club I was going to join before I found a better one that meets at the library across the street. The subject and basic premise were interesting enough to keep me reading, but my god the writing was awful. AWFUL. Everytime one character asked another a question, the answer was some corny, overly-symbolic story from the past. The whole book was one clichéd analogy after another...she even put analogies WITHIN analogies. For example:

"About five years ago a n More...

3 comments like (21 people liked it)

Mar 31, 2008

Marissa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2008

Amy rated it:

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2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

Leila rated it:

It’s impossible to talk about this book without discussing the ending but I promise to give warning before I do so it won't be spoiled for those who haven't read the book yet.

I had two main concerns going into this book. The first was that it would be nothing more than a political commentary on stem cell and embryo research. While it does touch on these issues, the book does not take a stand or attempt to pontificate a political stance to the reader. While I am sure the author has More...

5 comments like (11 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2010

Heather rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2007

Kathryn rated it:

This book was an extremely difficult read for me. I had to force myself to continue reading, as I didn’t want to feel as though I had wasted $14.00 by not completing it. It took about a month for me to finish the book and that is an unusual amount of time for me as I generally finish books in less than two weeks. I actually found myself scanning the pages and only reading the dialogue so I could move along towards the end.

What I really didn’t care for was that the story moved as s More...

6 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2009

Melanie rated it:

I am torn as I write the review for this book. I am amazed at how masterfully Picoult is able to tell a story from viewpoints of half a dozen people, and really pull it off. There is no stereotypical heroine/villain in this book. As I read each chapter from a different character's viewpoint, I developed compassion for each one in an amazing way. I downright bawled my eyes out at the end and felt I had truly gained something from the read. I considered it a great shame to have to sift throug More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Anne rated it:

My first taste of what Jodi Picoult has to offer. I love how she allows the reader to see the same story from different view points. And she picks topics that many people tend to view as "black and white" but are really filled with color.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 13, 2010

Lena rated it:

This book is really amazing because it shows two sides of the story. One is about saving Kate which sounds like a really good idea when you look at it from Kate's perspective. But when you look at it from Anna's perspective it sounds horrible that your parents are making you donate a kidney that takes you out of some very important sports and events that are natural to happen in life. It also shows everything from different points of view which introduces you to how hard it is to deal with this. More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2011

Joyzi rated it:

***Contains Major Spoilers***

This book was totally amazing, though I will give it 4 stars because of what happened in the end of the book.

Anna was a genetically engineered baby so that in the future she could be use as a donor for her sister Kate who has leukemia. At first it was only cord blood, then she have to give her after a few years, lymphocytes, granulocytes etc., then a bone marrow transplant.

Anna was a little kid then so the decisions i More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2012

Joy H. rated it:

Added 4/8/09 - Read in July 2009
This book was slow torture right to the very end. I wish I had never read it.
For my comments please see my topic at: ====>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1688...

For further, more pointed comments by other GR readers, see the following reviews: ====>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/228...
and
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/444...

I heartily agree with these readers! (Lobeck and Becky).
T More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 25, 2008

Kate rated it:

*reviewer note: I discuss in some detail my issues with this novel, although I do not give away any relevant events that transpire in the novel.*

Anna was born to save her sister. She was created as a perfect genetic match in order to become a perfect donor match for her sister, Kate, who has been battling leukemia since nearly infancy. Anna is now 13, and after several proceedures and operations for donation to her sister and a kidney donation for her sister now on the horizon, she More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2008

Meghan rated it:

I love this book and my students love it too! The way this book is written makes the reader become very involved with the characters- each "chapter" is written in a different characters' point of view. It is definitely current and deals with controversial medical and legal issues, like many of Jodi's books.

0 comments like (9 people liked it)