Slacks for Ella Funt

My Sister’s Keeper starts out as probably the most interesting novel I’ve read about the dangers of cloning. I’m sure there are lots more out there, but I found this one much more believable than Never Let Me Go (by Kazuo Ishiguro) and Cast of Shadows (by Kevin Guilfoile). It’s set in the contemporary world, in an average town, with a family that doesn’t seem that different from any other. They have a daughter with a rare form of leukemia and decide to have another daughter genetically designed to be a genetic match for the sick daughter to create umbilical cord blood for the leukemia treatments. As the donor daughter grows up, her sick sister continues to need platelets, bone marrow, and eventually a kidney. As the book begins, the donor sister has decided to declare herself medically emancipated from her parents to stop the donations.

The book is written with alternating chapters in the voices of different characters and for the most part, the only weak part is the romantic subplot between the two lawyers.

Picoult has raised some thought-provoking and not so futuristic issues, but unfortunately, she wimps out on making any decisions about the right thing to do. At the end of the book, a freak accident saves the parents and sisters from having to make a decision. I was disappointed that Picoult wrote such an issue driven book, without taking a stand.

Even though each chapter opens with the name of the character who is speaking, someone decided that it was necessary for each character should have a different typefaces. This makes for an unattractive and disjointed reading experience. In having to select that many unique typefaces, it’s unavoidable for some of them to be ugly and unpleasant to read.