My Sister's Keeper

I read My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult the other day.  I'm pretty sure that this is my first and last Jodi Picoult book.  I actually thought it was well written and engaging, but it was about a family dealing with cancer in a child.  A co-worker assures me that all Picoult books are about illness and someone dying.  I cannot read books like this for two reasons:

1) I have an active imagination
2) I have children

Before I had kids, I loved to watch CSI and Without A Trace.  After Emma was born, I couldn't watch these shows any longer because I would start imagining the awful storylines happening in my life.  Then, I'd feel sick to my stomach and be paranoid for a least a day or two.  Similarly, I can't read books about illness or tragic things happening to children because it makes me freak out and worry about my own kids. 

Okay, now that I have confessed why I can no longer read Picoult, I will tell you what I liked about the book.  The story is about a family who has a child with leukemia and makes the decision to have another child who can be a donor match for the sick child. Fast forward thirteen years and the test tube baby (Anna) no longer wants to be used as donor cells for her sister.  Anna decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation, so she can make her own decisions about procedures she will participate in. 

Picoult does such a great job developing all the characters.  At first, you want to root for Anna to win her case because it seems her mother doesn't have her best interest in mind.  Then, you read her mother's heart wrenching perspective on having a child that is dying and you understand why she would ask Anna to be a donor - anything to keep your other child alive.  There is no real winner in the case.  I won't give away the end, but I will admit to needing a tissue when I finished the book.  Still, as much as I enjoyed it, there is no way I can read another book like it without fearing for my children's lives.