Book Review: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
January 24, 2010
“But it’s really because there are some nights when you just want to know there’s someone else beside you in this wide world.”
This type of maudlin drivel is rife throughout this novel.
I hate so many things about “My Sister’s Keeper” that it’s hard to know where to begin: the fact the author’s name is missing a letter, that it includes the sentence “A real friend isn’t capable of feeling sorry for you” or just the sentimental gush that litters every page? How about the cringe-worthy running jokes? What about the three main male characters complying with three literary cliches – the delinquent, the perfect father and the justified bastard?
My Sister’s Keeper is primarily about Anna, “a designer baby” specially conceived so as to be able to provide blood and bone marrow for her sister, who is suffering from leukemia. Are you tearing up yet? Ms. Picoult will undoubtedly be disappointed if you are not.
The story is told through multiple narrators, something I usually find an effective and interesting technique – it is done very well by David Peace in his “Red Riding” trilogy for example. But Picoult chops far too abruptly between the characters all of whom think and talk in exactly the same manner. As I kept losing interest I had to flick back a couple of pages occasionally just to check whose account I was currently enduring.
At the midpoint of the book Anna observes her father saving someone’s life and says “Wouldn’t it be cool if they were all that way?” Now it does not take a genius to work out that she is comparing this person to her dying sister, any barely competent reader will work that out, but Picoult feels the need to ram home this point a few lines down – “What Anna means is that whatever is wrong…can be fixed.” At this point I almost lost the will to live. If you treat your reader like an imbecile they will resent you.
‘My Sister’s Keeper’ is not entirely worthless ; the basic idea of the novel is interesting but the author has no real answer, so cops out at the end with a twist that is presumably meant to make me finally break down in tears but just made me bored to tears. However even someone as emotionless as me was moved by the more depressing hospital visits, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that these were cheap tactics to make the reader sympathise with otherwise hugely unsympathetic characters. I assume Jodi Picoult read ‘Sophie’s Choice’ and thought “That was good but there wasn’t enough demoralizing and bloody organ failure.”
The fundamental problem though, is that this is a book aimed squarely, even cynically, at the book group market. It has rave reviews from Woman’s Weekly and Good Housekeeping on the back cover, it even has sample “Book Club Discussion Questions”. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have your hand held through every statement in the book, you are not even trusted to think up your own questions.
Example question: “What is the metaphorical relevance of Brian’s profession as a fire chief?” The book is littered with blindingly obvious allusions to burning, shooting stars and fires, so presumably this metaphor highlights Brian’s attempts to stop his family from metaphorically burning out. Instead it just reminded me that this book made me want to set myself on fire.
