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SETTING: Upper Darby, a fictional town in Rhode Island, in the year 2004.
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SUMMARY: 13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald was specifically conceived to be a perfectly matched blood and bone marrow donor for her terminally ill sister, Kate. When faced with having to donate a kidney to Kate, Anna decides to take legal action against her parents to become an emancipated minor.
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FAVORITE QUOTE: "It is that someone had to go, and Anna took my place." - Epilogue, page 498.
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After an entire 6 weeks, I finally picked up a book!!!! Since beginning this wonderful love affair with books, I can't remember going longer than one week without reading at least a chapter of a novel. And here an entire 6 weeks have passed, and I cannot begin to describe how much joy just holding a novel has brought me today! I actually started reading this book last December and only had the epilogue to go, but life stepped in before I could finish. I picked this book up from a second-hand bookshop I found in DC (finally got myself to one!), and it has a surprisingly great collection with fantastic deals. This one cost me an entire quarter :)
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Things I liked about this book:
- The way it's organized. The story is presented from the perspective of multiple characters as first-person narratives. Each character gets multiple chapters of their own to describe their side of the story, so the reader is presented with a comprehensive view of the thoughts and emotions felt by each character.
- The story line. It's interesting and fresh, and a type of story that I haven't ever encountered before.
- The emotions! The story just pulls you in and tears at your heart. And it almost made me cry!
- It gave me a new perspective on parenting, and life in general. The story made me think about the concept of fairness in life, and the importance of being open-minded regarding others' situations before judging or criticizing them for their decisions.
- The weak character development. With the length of the book and the way it is organized, I expected to know much more about the characters than I did by the time I finished the novel.
- Sara, Anna and Kate's mother. This isn't a fault with the book or story line, but I disliked Sara's character very much because I was biased towards Anna (as I'm sure many readers were), and it made me upset that Anna's life was the way it was.
I have decided I will never ever ever ever ever read a novel with a similar story line. Never. Again. I can't say I disliked the novel because it had many great qualities, but the horrible emotions that I faced while reading it were a bit too much for my liking. There's already enough pain and suffering in reality, and, for me at least, books are meant as an escape from the everyday dealings of life. So with that in mind, I'd rather not escape to a land of grief, sorrow, and death with no happy ending (at least in my opinion this book did not end happily).
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Recommend? Maybe. But most likely not.
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