Dear God, how I hated the characters in this book.
I read My Sister's Keeper after reading a blurb about it. The topic fascinated me: what would a child conceived to "save" a sibling think as they grew older? Especially if the "saving" part went on and on and on.
The books starts with that child, Anna, going to a lawyer to get out of her role as genetic donor on call. So far, so good. It's a soapy, Lifetime movie idea but I've nothing against a soapy story. Middlemarch and War and Peace have their soapy elements too. The problem isn't the soapiness, it's that Picoult keeps adding the soap, piling on sub-plots and adding quirks to her characters until, frankly, I wanted to kill them myself. You'll rarely find a less likable group of characters than the adults on display in this book.
Campbell Alexander, the lawyer Anna hires, is standard issue "selfish, self-absorbed, morally questionable attorney who only wants to win." His quirk is that he has a service dog but HE ISN'T BLIND. Gee, I wonder what the reason could be. Seriously, is there anyone with half a brain who can't think of the one other reason an adult would have a service dog? There must be loads because Picoult treats this as a big mystery even though every chapter from Campbell's point of view has him telling someone that "Judge" (get it, a lawyer with a dog named "Judge"? Wow.) is a service dog. I wish that Judge's service job would have been to bite Campbell on the leg everytime Campbell said the words "service dog" or at least to chomp on him whenever he was a jerk but, alas, Judge just trots around witnessing this silliness.
Then there's Julia Romano, Anna's court appointed guardian and Campbell's old flame. What are the chances that these two would see each other again after he dumped her? Well, they do live in Rhode Island and both practice law in Providence so I guess the question really is how is it possible they haven't run into each other in the last 20 years? Julia is quirky too, she's a free spirit. I know this because Julia gives all her appliances names. Her refrigerator is called "Smilla." Yes, Julia is considered by a court to be responsible enough to look after the interests of a child despite the fact that she names inanimate objects and converses with them.
But once you've got a load of Anna's mother, Sara, you'll probably think even Smilla would be a better guardian. Sara is the least likable person in the book. Selfish, delusional, self-absorbed and self-enchanted, Sara ignores her son Jesse to the point that he becomes a pyromaniac, sees her daughter Anna as a walking donor and relentlessly insists on "saving" her daughter Kate without asking the teenager what she wants. Oh, and she orders designer gowns from BlueFly and returns them on a regular basis. Sara was a lawyer and when the courtroom scenes start, Sara decides to represent herself. And why not? It's smart, it's cheap, it's the sort of thing courts love and it just makes sense. Why should anyone else have the spotlight? I think Picoult meant Sara to be likable and slightly clueless about the impact of her actions. I wanted to throttle Sara.
Everyone in this book ruminates. About life. About death. About the stars. About their appliances. Instead of being thoughtful or deep it just grinds the story to a halt. It also made me wish these people would stop navel gazing and do something. Say what you will about Jesse and his little match-focused hobby, at least he gets out of the house once in a while.
It all comes down to a courtroom confrontation, just like in Perry Mason. Will Anna win her freedom? Will Sara make her see that she may feel guilty for letting Kate die? Will Kate ever stand up for herself? Will Campbell tell Julia the real reason he dumped her? Will someone, anyone, tell Sara to shut up?
Then there's the "twist" ending. I know some readers hated it so much it ruined the book for them. I was too far gone by then to think anything but "so this is what irony overload looks like." And that the RI DMV must have some interesting rules if Campbell can get a driver's license.
Picoult is capable of, and has written, much better. (See The Pact, for an example of Picoult on form.) She'd have done beter to have cut the story in half, dropped all the sub-plots and stuck to the main story. And had several characters slap Sara. Repeatedly.
