Book Review: My Sister’s Keeper; By Jodi Picoult

If you have seen the movie, I say read the book. It's the same but not as much as you think it is.

I have known of this book for a while now, but I didn't know what it was all about, but of course, I ended up letting it piled up in my TBR pile for the longest time. I thought it was a chick flick.

Until the movie came....

I have a soft spot in anything that's being regard as a "spare part child". It has become an itch, or a peeve if you may, an issue this book has managed to portray.

I found myself trying to read it through whenever I could. This book comprised of first hand experience from all of the characters involved. The book centered on Anna, the specially engineered child by their parents, to be the sole donor for her older sister Kate, who is suffering from a rare kind of leukemia. One day, Anna just suddenly said she had enough and decided to court to apply for medical emancipation from her parents.

Personally this book is an emotional read for me. I got so absorbed in it, and I found myself feeling sorry for Anna through out the book. Regardless screaming somebody die already because I wanted to finish the book asap too lol.

But honestly… when I read the ending, I threw the book against the wall. I cried. I was emotional. I could NOT accept the ending of this book. It made me loathe the ending of the movie version of this book even more. There has NEVER been a book that could affect me as this one had been.

Oh well… try this out, you might be surprise when you come to love it as I did.

My Sister’s Keeper
By Jodi Picoult
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

First Words.When I was little, the great mystery to me wasn't how babies were made, but why.

Quote. You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.

rate } ♠♠♠♠
genre } fiction | chick lit | drama | bookclub
release day } 1st February 2005
publisher } Washington Square Press
format } Paperback
isbn } 9780743454537
pages } 488 pg.
source } bought
age group } pg 13+
interest } If you like Nicholas Spark, Try this one.
award } ALA Alex Award (2005)
Buy @ Amazon.com | Kindle

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Children Book Review: Hungry by Alethea Eason

rate } ♠♠♠♠
genre } fiction | children | science fiction | fantasy
release day } 1st October 2007
acquired } 12th February 2008
publisher } Eos
format } hardcover
isbn } 9780060825546
pages } 197 pages
source } bought
age group } children
interest } general
awards } -
Buy @ Nolly Book | D BookHaus

Hungry
By Alethea Eason

Via Amazon
Deborah is starting to notice things about her best friend, Willy—like how cute he looks in his Halloween costume and the adorable way his red hair curls just above his collar. He's the coolest boy in sixth grade, and the closest friend she's got . . . that is, until her alien parents tell her she has to eat him for dinner. After all, she's an alien, too—even if she and her family do live in disguise.

Should she keep Willy alive and survive on forbidden hamburgers and chocolate . . . or point her tentacles at her best friend and gain approval from alien kind?

There are times when everyone feels like they're from outer space. A zany adventure and a close and sympathetic look at middle-school friendships and rivalries, Alethea Eason's wonderfully unique first novel satisfies that craving to fit in.

My 2 Cents
Cover. I must admit this was the exact reason why I decided to get my paws on it. Something bit earth and something has tentacles.. with spikes.

This book has been on the number one spot of the best book list in the papers for weeks and it turned out to be a page turner. It’s also humorous and fill with dilemma that any teens would face one day in their life.

Ok.. Not really face one day. I mean, hardly any teenager out there actually have to eat their best friend because it’s tradition or culture….I hope. =X

Otherwise, this would be an awesome book to read. It would be great to actually listen to the students read this book and laugh at the story =3

The only reason what I gave this as a 4 ♠ instead a full score is because it just has a “just satisfactory” ending. It could have been better.

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Booking through Thursday: The End

You’ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next book you’re going to read? What?

Depends. I guess I let the end sinks in for a while. Then, I'd pick up a notebook, and start doing cliffnotes of my review! I have this habit from when I was a student at work. Thanks Mrs. Tan, this one actually sticks with me throughout the years, but it's a good stick though. =^_^= Notebooks I have lots of them! But I ended up buying the cheap ones from the $1.80 store or get this 10 per one sale of students exercise books.

Of course I have to say, if I am reading a series, and the book leaves me hanging, I just dive into another book, not to waste time that is. *toungue in cheek*

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Book Review: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

The book is an easy read. I found myself striding through the pages as I read through, drawn in the paragraphs. The plots are pretty simple but insightful. Even through the words, I could see the colors, the scene, the emotions. The characters are written in such as way that you feel like you are interacting with them. The author did an excellent job in portraying the tale of an afterlife. In the end the story did strikes me as a memorable read and I would recommend it to anybody.

The Blue Man was an intriguing character and my favorite of all. The only reason why I read this one was I have watch the Hallmark drama. I fell in love. The way to Eddie's acceptance to his life (death?) and reconnecting him to the people he had lost along the way was absolutely wonderful.

First Words. This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.Quote. All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it all the time.”
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
By Mitch Albom

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

Finished Reading: 18th March 2008
Acquire: 17th May 2004
Rate } ♠♠♠♠♠
Genre } Fiction | Literature | Spirituality | Book Club
Release Day }  23rd September 2003
Publisher } Hyperion
Format } Paperback
ISBN } 9781401308582
Pages } 196 pages
Source } Bought
Age Group } PG 13 yo +
Interests } Literature lovers  
Awards } New York Times Bestsellers (2003)
Support my reading by getting your copy } Amazon | Kindle

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Lit. Book Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

rate } ♠♠♠♠♠ ♥
genre } fiction | historical fiction | classic | japan | literature
release day } 22nd November 2005
acquired } 05th March 2008
publisher } Seal Books
format } paperback
isbn } 9780770429966
pages } 502 pages
source } bought
age group } 18+
interest } 18+
awards } -
Buy @ Amazon.com | Fenix Indie Online Bookstore, Brunei

Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden

Via GoodReads
In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world. For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.

We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive.

My 2 Cents
It took me a while to finish reading this book because I was really indulging myself word per word. You see, this book isn't the type of novel you should rush through. Regardless, the fact it is kind of wrong in some places, like the part where Arthur Golden mentioned about the "mizuage", the book pulled you in like a few other books could do. Plus it took me a while to actually pick up this book and I must admit I did watch the movie first, then read it, cause I don't want to be disappointed with the movie. The book itself is way better than the movie.



The book centers on a first view perspective of a geisha named, Nitta Saiyuri, who was born with the name Chiyo. Originally the daughter of a fisherman from small fishing village of Yoroido, Chiyo and her sister, Satsu; was sold off to Kyoto, one to an Okiya and another off to a brothel. Chiyo's early life in Gion was pretty much mostly hellish due to Hatsumomo (初桃), because she saw Chiyo's potential of being a successful geisha. There, she befriended another girl around her age nickname Pumpkin (おカボ). In the okiya she also met Mrs. Nitta, or "Mother", and Granny, the mistresses of the okiya, then there's also Auntie.

One day, she met a man that would change her point of life, the Chairman, and another geisha named Mameha (豆葉), who in fact is Hatsumomo's rival in Gion, who would trained Chiyo into a very popular geisha. Chiyo became Saiyuri and search for the man who leads her into becoming a geisha. Then time really came when they meet, but Saiyuri doesn't seem to get the opportunity to get his attention quite the way she wanted.

Over all this is an emotional book, way more emotional than the movie (obviously). Yes, I’m in one of those “Reading it is way better than the movie” sort of crowd. It was such a page turner that it’s hard to actually put it down when I have to go to sleep, or eat or work or other things I have to do. It’s an eye opener for one of the secluded chapters in the life of a geisha.

I would recommend this fully to any culture enthusiastic out there. But I wouldn’t place it in a school library, regardless how much I like to share this book, Just because there’s a few um.. inappropriate scenes for them students. Otherwise, it's a good read.

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