I have this objective to finish 5 books per month. Thing is, I also have to study. So ever since I started studying again, I've limited myself to 3 per month, because the other two would be left reviewing and rereading my textbooks (yeah, right). Anyhow, I got this idea from this guy when I was in high school, and he says it improves your system, thinking and awareness. According to him, he reads 5 books (1 of each: fiction, nonfiction, self help, business and a comic book), at the same time handling his companies, his radio show, and his (daily?) newspaper column. Oh, and having a family and traveling around the country and parts of the world that he's interested in. And as sad as this sounds, his talk that time was the only talk i listened to that wasn't directly related to school stuff (the lady after him was an absolute killer. She read her entire 45-minute talk). So the goal is, if i read a novel for this week, i finish that in one week or less. And if I read other kinds of books, then I allow myself, maybe, one and a half, at most?
I've finished the book My Sister's Keeper (2004) by Jodi Picoult.
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Brief Overview:
Kate is sick. AML. And for the longest time from when she was two and diagnosed with this rare type of cancer, what has been sustaining her are parts and pieces of what used to belong to her sister, Anna, initially conceived and made to match Kate. Umbilical cord, bone marrow, kidney – a ready-made match for whatever Kate’s body might need.
Anna has never questioned anything that her parents might have needed for Kate. She always followed and was ready to give whatever her sister might medically need. She would be injected with this and that to spike her cell counts for bone marrow harvesting, be ready to get platelets, be there to be harvested of whatever at anytime her sister might need it; at one snap, and she would readily give it. And she sacrificed so many things for it, too. Like hockey camp, chances to go have vacations anywhere, or even the probable opportunity to attend university abroad. All because she has to be always there and ready for when emergencies strike.
Now, when they ask Anna for one of her kidneys for Kate amidst an operation that might be considered useless, she’s decides to fight back – to have a right to her own body. This causes old relationships to be rekindled for Julia and Campbell, Anna’s family to be further broken apart, and for everyone else’s roles to be shaken up and re-examined, while Kate slowly withers away.
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Quotables:
Campbell: when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
…it is also my opinion the cornerstone of the American civil justice system. Simply put, people who have been backed into a corner will do anything to fight their way to the center again. For some, this means throwing punches. For others, it means instigating lawsuits.
Campbell: An heir and a spare… It sounded callous – having a subsequent child just in case the first one happens to die – yet it had been eminently practical once. Being an afterthought might not sit well with this kid, but the truth is children are conceived for less than admirable reasons every single day: to glue a bad marriage together; to keep the family name alive; to mold an a parent’s own image.
Sara: In my previous life, I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be – but that was before I’d been handed a fistful of crushed violets from a toddler. Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art.
Sara: When they gently turn Kate’s face to the other side, the tissue paper beneath her cheek is damp. I learn from my own daughter that you don’t have to be awake to cry.
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Brian: A woman… isn’t all that different from a bonfire… A fire’s a beautiful thing, right? Something you can’t take your eyes off, when it’s burning. If you can keep it contained, it’ll throw light and heat for you. It’s only when it gets out of control that you have to go on the offensive.
Campbell: I feel a momentary pang for poor Ophelia. Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow – beautiful while it’s there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.
Ana: Is there any place on Earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It’s like a rainy Sunday when you don’t have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father’s just mowed – comfort food for your nose…
The other thing I like is that Laundromats draw lonely people like metal to magnets. There’s a guy passed out on a bank of chairs in the back, with army boots and a T-shirt that says Nostradamus Was An Optimist. A woman folding at the table sifts through a heap of men’s button-down shirts, sniffing back tears. Put ten people together in a Laundromat and chances are you won’t be the one who’s worst off.
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Julia: Small tumblers in this puzzle begin to hitch for me. traditionally, parents make decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down, and somewhere, underneath all the rubble, are casualties like Anna.
Campbell: “Do you have kids?” Anna asks.
I laugh. “What do you think?”
“It’s probably a good thing,” she admits. “No offense, but you don’t exactly look like a parent.”
That fascinates me. “What do parents look like?”
She seems to think about this.”You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he’s really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.”
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Brian: it would have been better, of course, if Luisa had been in her own room, as her mother expected. But kids don’t stay where they’re supposed to. You turn around and find her not in the bedroom but hiding in a closet; you turn around and see she’s not three but thirteen. Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.
Julia: Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. “Then why are you here?”
“Because you know all the words to ‘American Pie’,” Campbell said. “Because when you smile, I can almost see the tooth on the side that’s crooked.” He stared at me. “Because you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”
Sara: for the first time in my life I begin to understand how a parent might hit a child – it’s because you can look into their eyes and see a reflection of yourself that you wish you hadn’t.
Brian: Shooting stars are not stars at all. they’re just rocks that enter the atmosphere and catch fire under friction. What we wish on, when we see one, is only a tail of debris.
In the upper left quadrant of the sky, a radiant bursts in a new stream of sparks. “Is it like this every night, while we’re asleep?” Anna asks.
It is a remarkable question – Do all the wonderful things happen when we are not aware of them?
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Jesse: I tell myself that I’ve invited him along to add to the thrill – one more person who knows only makes it more exciting. But it’s really because there are some nights when you just want to know there’s someone else besides you in this wide world.
Anna: I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store – ladies with smooth brown hair and show-me smiles, grapefruit-headed babies on their sibling’s knees – people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family.
Maybe it’s not so different from real photos, after all.Reaction:
Yes, I cheated again. I've read this last year, and this year was the only time I looked at it again to put in my blog. This year they made a movie adapted from the book, and I admit that I didn't see the movie because my doubts got the better of me. Maybe I should give it a chance while I'm on vacation next year... And read more books by the same author, as well, while I'm at it...
I'm not exactly a fan of tragic endings via illnesses and accidents, to put it in a lighter manner. But I did enjoy the witty remarks between family members, and the family issues, breaking things apart at their seams before getting to repair the relationships that were eroding piece by piece. The eventual finding of answers to different unanswered questions going haywire through their thoughts and written from their own different perspectives gives a different feeling of sympathy and angst all at the same time. When it comes to family, there is no other way to look at it but through sacrifice, giving, understanding, forgiving, and, honestly, hoping for the best. "In the end, after all the arguments have been given and the judgement has been laid out, nobody really wins."
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uncomfortable
rushed
giggly
grumpy
determined
busy
awake
scared
cold
angry
listless
groggy
crushed
