Outside Reading #5

The main method that Jodi Picoult is revealing events that explain the build-up to the present is the use of flashbacks in My Sister's Keeper. This technique is used when Sara, Anna's mom, is recalling the first hints of Kate's illness. She began describing the natural events in her family's (Brian-her husband, Jesse-her son, and Kate-her daughter) life; taking a bath, going to bed, playing. After a few pages of this course of events the symptoms begin to appear, when Kate is still very young, "The bruise is the size and shape of a four-leaf clover, and sits square between Kate's shoulder blades" (Picoult 26). For a parent this isn't exceptionally different from anything in a healthy child, but after further bruises, Kate's parents took her into the pediatrician. Many tests later, Kate was diagnosed with Leukemia, a blood cancer. Picoult portrays Sara and Brian's emotions very vividly, in the perspective of Sara, so you feel like you are in the room with the doctor and the family. This big news will change the family's lifestyle, behaviors, and priorities, and it will be interesting to follow them in that transformation.