Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

21 reviews

seawarrior's review against another edition

2.0

The primary issue that I have with this book is its melodrama. Picoult seemed very deliberate in including plot points and phrases that heightened the emotional drama and distress that the characters were experiencing. By the final pages of the book, this was painful to the point of irritation. 

I also felt that Picoult shied away from fully exploring the situation Anna was in. By making her subservient to her parents and a willing participant in the surgeries she was born to endure, Picoult never has to stare down the true horror of Anna's life.

Though she's granted medical emancipation, we later realize that even this decision was made to help Kate, negating any hurt or resentment between the family members. Anna's death serves this purpose even further. Though her family grieves her, she had a slim realm of identity and personality outside of providing for Kate, so in a way she exists as she always has.

I think this book did a disservice to its own mission by relying on plot twists that eventual solved the ethical and familial ramifications of Anna's fight for the rights to her own body. 

Unfortunately I did not feel that the additional protagonists were written well either. It felt to me that Picoult stretched herself too thin, and managed to create characters who represented problems that needed to be solved within her narrative, but not much more. Though each character had different perspectives, most noticeably defined by their fields of study or past life experiences, their voices were not dissimilar and I didn't think they possessed the true complexity of human beings. I will say that Picoult's story was engaging, and seemed to have been researched well; yet I am not an expert in medicine, law, astronomy, fire science or any other topics Picoult needed factual support to make a part of her story. I would recommend this book to others who are interested in children's rights in the medical field, although do not expect the book to be too revolutionary, as I did. Instead it provides a starter for questioning the way we undermine children's consent in medicine, and ends with vague assertions that are ultimately meaningless for Anna.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Car accident, Grief, Medical trauma, Blood, Suicide attempt, Child death, Medical content, Terminal illness, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Pregnancy and Excrement

Minor: Sexual content, Alcohol, and Drug use

ansfaiv's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Chronic illness, Cancer, Grief, and Child death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Blood, Drug use, Drug abuse, Car accident, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Cursing, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

niiici's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Death, and Car accident

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Ableism

shushkeepitdown's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An extremely sad book which tackles all the horrible things that a family has to go through when one of their loved ones is with an illness with no certain cure. I honestly loved the beginning and even almost near the end it was so good but then the ending came and honestly I was very disappointed with it. Also there are multiple POVs and I wouldn't have minded it but what they do is during the book they constantly switch between present time and their past memories so I had to constantly read paragraphs over and over to make sure what was currently going on and what was a random memory they just put in the middle. They do this for every point of view. It was a good starting book but the ending honestly stopped this from being a 4.5 star book for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Death, Drug use, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Abandonment and Sexual content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

childoflokii's review against another edition

emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Gaslighting, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, and Child death

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

belfrybatz's review against another edition

challenging sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It was very slow, and the characters particularly the mom were extremely unlikeable 
/flawed but not in a good way. The ending shocked me and made me sad, but came way too late to make me interested in the plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Death, Grief, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Moderate: Drug use

darkpoet's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This book was amazing and I have so many thought and opinions on all these characters that I now hold dear to my heart. The only reason I did not give it five stars was because of the ending.
I extremely disliked that in the end Anna did this because Kate wanted to die. I wish that Anna did do the selfish thing by wanting her own life. You first see her character as someone who wants to not have the only purpose of her life be used as Kates donor but towards the end we see that she made the choice because of Kate and not herself. Anna and Jesse were pushed aside as children and were extremely neglected and I thought that it was refreshing to finally see a story where someone isn’t willing to throw their life away for someone whose dying. (Not to say that i don’t feel bad for cancer patients) In the end all the growth that I had thought Anna went through was pointless because in the end she wasn’t given the choice she had to pick what was best for Kate. I wanted Anna to finally be ready to love her family but also know that when she gets older she will leave and not come back because of the circumstances. I also didn’t like how they went though the whole conflict of Anna finding her own worth just for it all to come back to Kate. I feel like this could have a deeper meaning of everyone comes back to the people dying and forgets that everyone is dying and deserves love and attention. This ending I accepted for the time being because I knew Anna would be able to have a life of her own without being linked to Kate. I was stunned though when Anna was in the car accident and pronounced brain dead. It seemed like a definite shock ending but at the same time a easy way to wrap this book up. But what absolutely destroyed me was after this entire thing Anna’s life came down to saving Kates. Anna’s whole purpose became to save Kate and i find that absolutely disgusting. Anna was going to finally have her own life and own purpose and instead she started her life for Kate and ended it for Kate.  Anna was shown through her whole life that her only purpose was to save Kate and instead of her finally breaking through she ends up saving her in the process of herself dying. I cried hard to this book and was touched by it but the ending left me feeling disgusted at Anna’s mom and even Anna’s dad at some points and i wish Anna would’ve gotten to know how special she was without her sister.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Car accident, Abandonment, and Child abuse

maxreadssometimes's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Minor: Drug use

danielle2121's review against another edition

emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

aimeal815's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wouldn’t say I’m upset with this book, because I thought the story was really interesting, but I am definitely upset with aspects of it. I found it very difficult to read at times because I was having trouble sympathizing with a lot of the characters. It felt like some of the conflicts were very needless

such as the whole thing with Campbell and Julia

. I also found the ending incredibly upsetting. I know that that was the whole point, but it felt almost ridiculous.

It made me feel almost like I wasted my time following Anna’s whole story for it to just be thrown away at the end like that.

That being said, it was a very complex plot with a lot of complex characters, and I can appreciate that because that’s just how life is. It’s just that there were too many parts of it that I had trouble with in order to really love it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical trauma, Medical content, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, Chronic illness, Child death, Car accident, and Blood

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Cursing, and Addiction

Minor: Excrement, Alcohol, and Alcoholism