Finished reading this book a few weeks ago and get the chance to watch this movie yesterday. Both the novel and movie brings the same feeling to me. It almost make me cry, only when my room mate beside me who was watching comedy chuckle. Can you imagine how i feels who was actually going to cry.. But anyway, thumbs up to Jodi Picoult for writing this wonderful novel! Here is the synopsis of the novel:My Sister's Keeper is a novel by Jodi Picoult. The story follows the life of 11- year-old Anna Fitzgerald, who enlists the help of an attorney, Campbell Alexander, to sue her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald for rights to her own body. Kate Fitzgerald, Anna's older sister, suffers from leukemia, and their parents conceived Anna through in vitro fertilization to be a genetic match donor for her sister Kate. Anna donates genetic material throughout her life, including blood and bone marrow for her sister. Their parents want Anna to donate a kidney to Kate after she goes into renal failure, but Anna instead files a lawsuit against her parents for medical emancipation from her parents despite the consequences of her sister's health.
Her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, have different reactions to the law suit. Brian has mixed feelings whereas, Sara feels that Anna should donate the kidney to save Kate's life. Sara is a lawyer turned housewife and decides to represent herself and her husband in the suit. She continuously attempts to get Anna to drop the suit, but Anna refuses and moves out of the house and into the fire station where her father works.
After Kate's cancer diagnosis, Jesse Fitzgerald, Brian and Sara's oldest child, grows up to be a troublemaker involved in alcohol, drugs, theft, and arson. Throughout the book an arsonist frequently sets fires in the area, a problem for Brian and his colleagues. After following the clues, Brian discovers that the arsonist was Jesse. Following which, Brian confronts Jesse and learns how badly Kate's illness has affected him. Brian vows to keep Jesse's arson a secret. Jesse eventually straightens himself out later on becoming a police officer.
The judge at the hearing, Judge DeSalvo, is a parent who lost his 12-year-old daughter, Dena, in a drunk-driving accident. The guardian ad litem assigned to Anna as her representative is Julia Romano, an old girlfriend of Campbell's.
Julia and Campbell met in a private high school. She was a scholarship student from a poor background while he was a rich kid. They fell in love and enjoyed a relationship until Campbell broke up with her at graduation. Julia never knew the reason but felt it was because of her social class. Although they try to conduct court business, their attraction to each other is obvious.
Campbell has a service dog named Judge to aid him with his disability. He keeps the purpose of the dog a secret and gives frivolous answers to any questions on the dog's purpose. Feeling abandoned again, Julia is frustrated about her relationship with Campbell. But when Campbell has a seizure during Anna's testimony, the purpose of the dog is revealed: he is a seizure dog. She discovers Campbell developed epilepsy after a wreck before graduation, and he broke up with her because he did not want to be a burden. She supports him, and they reunite. They eventually marry.
Campbell and Sara bring in their witnesses and battle over whether Anna is mature enough for medical emancipation. Julia, who is supposed to deliver a report about who she thinks should win, is undecided. Anna, who has refused to testify, is the last witness to speak. She reveals that Kate told her that she did not want Anna to go through with the transplant. Which was why Anna filed the lawsuit. The judge decides in favor of Anna and gives Campbell medical power of attorney over her.
Anna dies in a car wreck soon after she is emancipated from her parents. Her kidneys, and other organs, are donated to Kate, and other patients that might need them.
Kate believes that the reason she survived is because someone had to go, and Anna took her place. She grows up to be a dance instructor and whenever she'd missed her sister, she'd look at the scars from the kidney transplant and believe she took Anna wherever she went.
The ending of the movie is slightly different where Kate is the one who pass away....
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