My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picocult
I recently finished reading a book called My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picocul. A very good book, if I do say so myself. For those that have not read the book, do so, I highly recomaned it. And for those that have read it, I want to hear your thoughts on it.
The only reason Anna was born was to save her sister. She was design to be a gentic match for her sister that was dying of cancer. Anna underwent so much for her older sister Kate.
But, when Anna became a teenager she decided to sue her parents so that she could make desions about what do with her body-this came about when her parents told her that she need to donate a kidney for her sister Kate who was in kidney failure.
Anna was tried of being used, when Kate’s body was going out of wack, rather it be a blood transfusion, bone marrow transplant, ect. I felt for Anna, I found my self in shouting out, no.. that can’t happen or just go girl, when something exicting happened.
I never thought that Anna would be killed.[Almost the same way Derek died] how her father saw her body and the nurse said that how her spirit was not their any more. That killed me, only because until you have seen a dead person and touch them, you that is true, that its just their body and their spirit not there anymore.
Reminded me of seeing in Derek’s body in his casket at his viewing. And how his mom, telling me that it was okay to touch him. At first I was really quick and soft. It wasn’t till later that week that I was able to really grab hold of his cold dead hand and hold it, then kiss him on the forehead.
Anyways back to the book: How in the end her sister got her kidney and that Anna fought so much for her rights not to do that anymore. Anna wanted to make the dession about what was to be done with her body. I am glad her sister got her kidney it was as if part of her went on living.
I loved this book it one of the best books that I have read in a long time. It brought me to tears at the end of the book.
Below are some quotes from the book that I enjoyed, some of which I went on to talk about. Please disregard in spelling or grammar issues.
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Below are some thoughts from quotes in the book that I have liked.
Every parents needed advice
Page 147- “ Patenting is really just a matter of tracking, hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next move.
Saving
“I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.”
I think that’s true about a lot of things. I was told that when you pray for something you need to be specific as to what you want. Because the Lord will give it to you in his time it just may not be how you wanted it. So you gotta be specific.
Cancer it becomes part of your life
Page 164 – “ It takes only thirty seconds to realize that you will be canceling all your plans, earsing whatever you had been cocky enough to schedule on your calendar. It takes sixty seconds to understand that even if you had been fooled into thinking so, you do not have an ordinary life.”
“They say that word, relapse, like they might say birthday or tax deadline, something that happens so rountienly it has become part of your internal calendar, wherther you want it to or not.'
Life gets no gauntness
Page 166- “I close my eyes, take a few deep breaths. And it strikes me: not everyone dies of old age. People get run over by cars. People crash in airplanes. People Choke on peanunts. There are no guarantees about anything, least of all one’s own future.”
Kid answers why the dino’s died
Page 169- “Today at snack Ethan said that the dinosaurs all died because they got a cold,” Anna says, “but no one believed him.”
Brian grins. “Why do you think they died.
“Because, duh they were a million years old.” She looks up at him. “Did they have birthday parties back then?”
I love to see that written in the history books. Dinos where old that’s why they died out… they didn’t died from coment! Maybe we should have children write are text books, I bet they would be far more interesting through there eyes.
Attention span…
Page 177- “Jesse says goldfish can only pay attention for 9 seconds.”
Some times I feel like that… only a very short attention span.
Endearments
Page 178- “Why are terms of endearment always foods? Honey, Cookie, Sugar, Pumkin. It’s not like caring about someone is enout to actually sustain you.”
Those terms of Love, they really won’t keep you alive. And it won’t bring someone back. Sure they may sound all sweet and loving and caring. But, why call someone a food item? Does that mean you compare them to food? Sure, I liked to be called those terms, by my lover and I called him those names too. But, have you every really stop to think about how we truly us those terms.
Those Fake Pictures
Page 252- “I use to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you but at the store-ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-head babies on their siblings knees-people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a taken scout to be a phony family.”
The author here makes a good point.. where do they find those families?
Ain’t that the truth
Page 266-“The Princpale is a dick.” “You know what, Jess? The world’s full of them. You will always be up against someone. Something.”
Well, not the best word I would have choosen. But, yeah, there are idots out there. And everyonce in awhile you are going to be up against them and their idiotics, that is just a part of life. But how you deal with them, is the key.
Page 271- “We are not the first person to lose a child. But we are the first parents to lose our child. And that makes all the difference.”
I know I wasn’t the first person to lose a fiancé in my life and by gully I won’t be the last. But it doesn’t make it any easier. I was the first person to loose a fiancé in my life, and more than likely in my own family.
Page 272- “Here’s my question:What are you when you’re in Heaven? I mean, if its’ heaven you should be at your beauty-queen best, and I doubt all the people who die of old age are wandering around toothless and bald. It opens up a whole additional realm of questions, too. If you hang yourself, do you walk around all gross and blue, with your tongue spitting out of your mouth? If you are killed in war, do you spend eternity munus the leg that got blown up by a mine?”
What love is… what Derek did
Page 310- “When you care more if someone else lives than you do about yourself….. is that what love’s like?”
Love is giving all you have at what all cost. It’s putting what you have on a plate and giving it all to someone else. I wish more people in life would realize what true love is all about. When Sara was talking wit Brian about this, I knew the answer. Yes, that is what love is like. And when someone loves you like every thing in the world then they will put their life in behind them, just to see you happy.
I didn’t cry till like page 322, after I read the apart about a boy, that Kate went the hospital prom with died. And the mom didn’t tell her until a month later. It was her I felt for Kate. Because, I lost someone I love so dearly. L
Lifes not fair
Page 326- “It doen’t take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have we rarely get.”
Living my last 21 years of my short life, I have come to realize just true that statement is. People don’t always get what they deserve. They may see others’ getting something and perhaps wonder why.
I myself wonder almost nightly, why I am not married. Why my fiancé had to die. And I guess, like the statement says… no one gets what they really deserve. Such as life.
Webster's Dictonary
Page 417-
“In the English Language there are orphans and widow, but there is no word for a parent who has lost a child.”
[Or a child who lost a parent, lost a sibling or someone who has lost a boyfriend(who was almost a finace) or a friend who has lost a best friend to death).]
Life and Plans on Life
Page 352 –
“Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details you forget you are living in it…”
Page 338-
“If you want to see God laugh, make a plan.”
Adult and Life
Page 348- “Half the grown-ups on this planet have no idea who they are, but they get to make decisions for themselves every day.”
Page 350- Time
“There is a curious thing that happens with the passage of time; a calcification of character.”
Page 360- To Get What You Want
“Well, sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.”
This is soo true I didn’t want to loose my fiancé but, I did. I could what till I get to heaven to get married to him. But I don’t think he wants me to wait that long, he wants me to be happy and by getting married I can achieve that type of happyiness. But getting married to someone means I can’t be with him.
Dying
Page 377-
“It’s not suicide,” she said, “If you’re already dying.”
[my head thoughts: So aren’t we already dying?]
Page 395-
Childern=Receive
“I realized that we never have children, we receive them, and sometimes it’s not for quite as long as we would have expected or hoped. But it is still far better than never having had those children at all.”
Page 422 –
Grief and Pain and Death
“Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a band-aid being ripped away, taking the tope layer off a family. And the underbelly of a house hold is never pretty, outs no expection.’
“See as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has let this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day, you look down and see how much pain has eroded.”
I know one day I will look back and see that a lot of pain has been eroded from Derek’s death. Yes, I will still see the imprint it left in my life but I will remember the love he left most of all.
“I wonder if she keeps tab on us.”
[I know that Derek does and he wants to kick me in the head ever time I cry. (Dec.24,2007)]
A navity set that was my fiance's I think its really cool and is very special to me. His mom made them!
