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angelicalangie "In my first memory I am three years old, and I am trying to kill my sister. Sometimes, the recollection is so clear I can remember the itch of the pillow case under my hand, the sharp point of her nose pressing into my palm..."
This is the prologue of the book and sets a tale i motion which deals with the question of "How far would you go to save a child?"
The main protagonist is Anna, and whilst she is not sick she has had innumerous invasive procedures from the age of five to provide any manner of 'donatable' cells to her severely ill sister. By the time she is thirteen she is apparently so sick of it all that she hires an attorney complete with service dog.
Each chapter of the bok is told via the players n the drama Julia who is a guardian ad litem and is also romantically linked both before and durin g the novel to Campbell Alexander the lawyer, her parents Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, Anna the main character and the most enigmatic, Jesse Fitzgerald, the overlooked older brother and Kate Fitxgerald, who is the sick middle sister, upon who the entire fitzgerald clan focus's on.
Whilst a fascinating novel I was angry at time when reading and at other desperately sad. It is also one of those ethical questions of do you have children as little more than spare parts or should we limit it. Also it is a look at family dynamics underfire and how families when one person is so ill ignore all that goes on around them.
One line was emotionally resonant for me;
"See, as much as you want ot hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tid: at first it makes no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded."
This is the prologue of the book and sets a tale i motion which deals with the question of "How far would you go to save a child?"
The main protagonist is Anna, and whilst she is not sick she has had innumerous invasive procedures from the age of five to provide any manner of 'donatable' cells to her severely ill sister. By the time she is thirteen she is apparently so sick of it all that she hires an attorney complete with service dog.
Each chapter of the bok is told via the players n the drama Julia who is a guardian ad litem and is also romantically linked both before and durin g the novel to Campbell Alexander the lawyer, her parents Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, Anna the main character and the most enigmatic, Jesse Fitzgerald, the overlooked older brother and Kate Fitxgerald, who is the sick middle sister, upon who the entire fitzgerald clan focus's on.
Whilst a fascinating novel I was angry at time when reading and at other desperately sad. It is also one of those ethical questions of do you have children as little more than spare parts or should we limit it. Also it is a look at family dynamics underfire and how families when one person is so ill ignore all that goes on around them.
One line was emotionally resonant for me;
"See, as much as you want ot hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tid: at first it makes no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded."
