Yana Vargas (Editor)'s Reviews > My Sister’s Keeper

When I first read this, i hadn't had a chance to make a review. Now, I have.

This is a story of Anna and her family. Anna was conceived for the sole purpose-to be her older sister's donor of almost everything(from bone marrow, to blood, and to kidney). For almost thirteen years, she did just that-donating. But all of a sudden she had the guts to file a suit against her parents. She wants them to stop using her body for her sister's sake.

(seriously heartbreaking)
I cried when she said that the four-letter word for VESSEL is ANNA. Like she's just a vessel for her sister, not for herself at all.
*CHARACTERS*

ANNA, our protagonist is such a brave girl. She's loving and I'm truly rooting for her. Even with the lawsuit, which will kill her sister Kate, still she's doing it for Kate. She said something like-she's the only one whoever gets to give what her sister wants. and this time, her sister wants to die, so that's what she's giving. Just heartbreaking in a sense that she's willing to give everything she can give to Kate.

KATE-the one who has cancer. I totally understand her. It's better to die than to live the way she's been living since she was diagnosed. She needs rest and maybe for her family, that would be unfair because they'd been fighting for her to live. But for Kate, it seemed like life already left her long ago so what's the point of going back to the hospital constantly? Not to mention she's killing Anna in the process.

SARA, the mother of the two girls(and of another boy). She's one-sided but she has no choice. We can never really judge a mother's love, how she thinks, and acts when it comes to her children. The problem is she keeps forgetting that she has two daughters, not just one. But in her situation, she thought Kate needed her attention/love more. She might also thought, since she had her own sacrifices for Kate, she expected the people around her to do the same, especially ANNA.

BRIAN, The father, he loves his wife but it was great he rooted for Anna at the end. He had to.

JESSE, He's fucked up but what do you expect? He spent all his life living in that house. No one ever seemed to realise he badly needs the same attention his two sisters are getting.

CAMPBELL, the lawyer. He's great. Seriously that's all I can say about him. And yeah I love his love story along with ANNA's GAL, JULIA. Let me add one thing about him, it was moving that he helped Anna because he truly understand what it means to have no right about one's own body.

Okay here's what I found incredibly questionable? Why did Anna need to die? I don't care about the lessons it's trying to teach like, we only realise what matters when it's gone, or some lessons like that. I don't really understand the relevance of her death in the entire story. Why not just end the story like, Kate survived but still we all know she won't last long. That's acceptable, more acceptable than Anna dying after all she'd done.
Maybe one of this novel's lesson is LIFE IS UNFAIR. It appeared that Anna was only her sister's keeper. She existed only for that purpose.

I didn't like the ending but still give this book FIVE STARS, it deserves it, I'm not the author anyway, I don't get to choose how it should end.

I learned from this book that SACRIFICING IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO PROVE YOUR LOVE TO SOMEONE. Sometimes, it's simply just respecting their choices. Like what Anna did when Kate didn't want to live her life that way anymore, she intended to respect it.