I knew the ending of My Sister’s Keeper was going to be very unexpected and exciting, but I had no idea what I was in for. The ending begins when Anna confesses that Kate convinced her to file the lawsuit against Brian and Sara because she wanted to die. “‘Anna,’ Campbell says, ‘who convinced you?’ I am small in this seat, in this state, on this lonely planet. I fold my hands together, holding between them the only emotion I’ve managed to keep from slipping away: regret. ‘Kate’” (Picoult 378).
Anna goes on to explain Kate’s wishes.
“‘Anna you were saying Kate asked you to file this lawsuit for medical emancipation?’
Again, I squirm. ‘Not quite.’
‘Can you explain?’
‘She didn’t ask me to file the lawsuit.’
‘Then what did she ask you?’
I steal a glance at my mother. She knows; she has to know. Don’t make me say it out loud. ‘Anna,’ Campbell presses, ‘what did she ask you?’
I shake my head, tight-lipped, and Judge DeSalvo leans over. ‘Anna, you’re going to have to give us an answer to this question.’
‘Fine.’ The truth bursts out of me; a raging river, now that the dam’s washed away. ‘She asked me to kill her’ (Picoult 387-388). Of course, this surprised me a lot when Kate told Anna not to go through with the kidney transplant, because she was ready to die and she felt like she’d been holding Anna back too much. Anna begins to realize that she wanted to grow up, even if Kate couldn’t; she wanted Kate to be alive, but also wanted to be herself, not part of Kate. “Kate’s death would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me…and also the best” (Picoult 391). Sara doesn’t believe Anna at first. She thinks Anna is making the story up, and if Kate wanted to die so badly, she would have talked to her own mother about it. However, in the end, Sara begins to realize that she has taken Anna for granted, just for Kate’s sake. She becomes aware of the fact that nobody has a child, but receives one. Even though Kate’s life wasn’t what she hoped or imagined it would be, she’s still thankful for Kate’s life.
The major plot of Anna wanting the rights to her own body is resolved when Judge DeSalvo declares her medically emancipated from her parents. “‘What that means is that even though you will continue to live with them, and even though they can tell you when to go to bed and what TV shows you can’t watch and whether you have to finish your broccoli, with regards to any medical treatment, you have the last word. And just so that she has additional guidance, should she need it, I’m going to ask Mr. Alexander to assume medical power of attorney for her until age eighteen, so that he may assist her in making some of the more difficult decisions’” (Picoult 410). Anna is nervous to hear what her parents have to say after getting medically emancipated from them, but Sara and Brian hold her in a hug saying that everything is alright.
The minor plot of Campbell and Julia’s romance is resolved as well when Campbell has a grand mal seizure in the courthouse during the Fitzgerald case. Once he becomes conscious, he tells Julia the real reason for having Judge, his dog. “‘He’s a seizure dog,’ I say.
‘No kidding. Why didn’t you tell me, Campbell?’
‘Julia, I didn’t even tell my parents.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
I sigh. ‘A while.’
‘A while, as in a week?’
Shaking my head, I say, ‘A while, as in two days before we graduated from Wheeler. The day I took you home, all I wanted was to be with you. When my parents told me I had to go a stupid dinner at the country club, I followed them in my own car, so I could make a quick escape- I was planning on driving back to your house, that night. But on the way to dinner, I got into a car accident. I came through with a few bruises, and that night, I had the first seizure. The doctors made it pretty clear I’d have to live with it forever.’ I take a deep breath. ‘Which is what made me realize that no one else should have to.’
‘What?’ Julia asked.
‘What do you want me to say, Julia? I wasn’t good enough for you. You deserved better than some freak who might fall down frothing at the mouth any old minute’” (Picoult 383-384). After hearing this, Julia is almost relieved because she thought Campbell had dumped her because she wasn’t good enough for him. She says that if he had told her back fifteen years ago, she wouldn’t be lonely now. They resolve their arguments, and become the lovers they were fifteen years ago. At the end of this chapter Julia says something that is one of my favorite quotations in the entire book. “‘And another thing-this time, you don’t get to leave me. I’m going to leave you.’
If possible, that only makes me feel worse. I try to pretend it doesn’t hurt, but I don’t have the energy. ‘So go.’
Julia settles next to me. ‘I will,’ she says. ‘In another fifty or sixty years’ (Picoult 385). I believe that this is one of the best moments of My Sister’s Keeper because it’s so sweet and it is the start of the new life Campbell and Julia will share.
Just as I thought the book was coming to a warm happy ending, an unexpected and shocking accident happens. While driving home from the courthouse after getting medically emancipated from Sara and Brian, Anna and Campbell have one last conversation before everyone’s life is turned upside down. “‘What you said at the trial…do you really think I’ll be amazing in ten years?’
‘Why, Anna Fitzgerald, are you fishing for compliments?’
‘Forget I said anything.’
He glances at me. ‘Yes, I do. I imagine you’ll be breaking guy’s hearts, or painting in Montmartre, or flying fighter jets, or hiking through undiscovered countries.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe all of the above.’
There was a time when, like Kate, I’d wanted to be a ballerina. But since then I’ve gone through a thousand different stages: I wanted to be an astronaut, paleontologist, backup singer for Aretha Franklin, a member of the Cabinent, a Yellowstone National Park ranger. Now, based on the day, I sometimes want to be a micro surgeon, a poet, a ghost hunter. Only one thing’s a constant. “Ten years from now,’ I say. ‘I’d like to be Kate’s sister’ (Picoult 412). Then, at that moment, Campbell and Anna get into a horrible car crash. Brian is immediately called to the scene, not knowing his own daughter is in the mangled car. Campbell is alright; just a broken arm and other minor injuries. However, at the hospital, the doctors tell Brian and Sara that Anna is brain dead from hitting her head against the car window with great force and a respirator is keeping her breathing going. Brian and Sara know that their daughter isn’t really alive anymore; she’s merely a shell. Therefore, they make the hardest move of their life by flipping off the respirator.
The novel is ended in 2010 by Kate, who narrates her first chapter in the book. I really enjoyed this chapter because it was the first insight into Kate’s brain since Ii started the book. She talks about how she received a kidney from Anna, after she was declared dead. Kate talks about how much grief the Fitzgerald’s went through; she would sit in her room for days on end with earphones in so she wouldn’t have to listen to her mom crying. Kate also expresses feeling of guilt for Anna’s death. “‘And for me, well, I began to hate myself. It was, of course, all my fault. If Anna had never filed that lawsuit, if she hadn’t been at the courthouse signing papers with her attorney, she never would have been at that particular intersection at that particular moment. She would be here, and I would be the one coming back to haunt her’” (Picoult 421). Kate goes on to sum up the lives of the characters in My Sister’s Keeper by saying that Campbell and Julia got married, Jesse graduated from the police academy and won a citation from the mayor last year for his role in a drug bust and Brian fell deep into a bottle after Anna died. A captivating quote from this chapter was, “‘Sometimes I go into the bathroom and I lift up my shirt and touch the white lines of my scar. I remember how, at first, I thought the stitches seemed to spell out her name. I think about her kidney working inside me and her blood running through my veins. I take her with me, wherever I go’” (Picoult 423). I found this captivating because even after a person dies, their organs and other body parts can still be helping another person live.
One of my favorite characters in My Sister’s Keeper was Jesse because he was a rebel. I liked his easy-going, I-don’t-care-if-I-get-in-trouble attitude. I also found it interesting how Jesse cared less about what his parents thought, yet tried to get their attention frequently. Even though Jesse didn’t follow the right road in life, he still cared deeply for his two sisters, which allows the reader to think that there’s much more to this character than what meets the eye. I also enjoyed the character Campbell Alexander. There was a sense of mystery and intrigue to him because he never told the real reason as to why he has a dog. He also didn’t give a specific reason as to why he broke up with Julia fifteen years ago before they graduated from Wheeler High, which we learned was because of his seizures at the end of the novel.
A moral lesson that I took away from this novel is that a healthy life is so precious and we all take it for granted. Everyday we wake up and begin our hectic and tiring days, forgetting the fact that we should be thankful that we don’t have to suffer through leukemia and other cancers like Kate did. Instead, we should be thanking God for the privileges He has given us like good health, and we should be living our lives without regret because we never know if today is our last day. Death doesn’t just come from old age or cancer; unexpected accidents happen every day, which resulted in losing Anna’s very precious life in My Sister’s Keeper. She wasn’t the one who was supposed to die; Kate was the sick one. However, unforeseen disasters always occur and therefore we should always be appreciating the life we live.
Overall My Sister’s Keeper was an excellent read and I recommend it to anyone. Jodi Picoult did a wonderful job of displaying the problems that occur in a family if a child is sick with cancer. Every chapter brought a new problem or secret into the plot, which made for entertaining reading. I finished the book about a month ago, because I couldn’t put it down. The ender was a tear-jerker and I literally had to read the part where Anna and Campbell got into a car accident three times to comprehend the fact that Anna was brain dead. If you are looking for a touching family drama/ romance, My Sister’s Keeper is for you!
