Month: September 2021

book review

My Sister’s Keeper

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my sister's keeperMy Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Website | Twitter | IG)

Genre: contemporary literature

Setting: Providence, RI

I read it as a(n): MMP

Source: my own collection 

Length: 500 pp

Published by: Pocket Books (2004)

Her Grace’s rating: 4 out of 5 stars

**Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and smack a great big SPOILER ALERT on this whole review. Read at your own risk, you’ve been warned**

Thirteen-year-old Anna Fitzgerald loves her sister, Kate, who has a rare form of leukemia. But that doesn’t mean she is willing to donate a kidney to her on top of everything else she’s already had done to her. Anna was born via in vitro specifically so that she could be a donor for Kate. To be fair, her parents only wanted to use her cord blood to help Kate and everyone thought that would be the end of it. Turns out, it was only the beginning of years of blood, bone marrow, and other body part donations to Kate. Now Anna is suing her parents for medical emancipation, for her right to control her own body, even if it means Kate dies as a result.

Somehow I have missed the Jodi Picoult fandom; this is the first book of hers I’ve ever read. I can see why she is so popular! I sat my ass down and read this entire 500 page book in one day. I found her writing to be engaging and the story compelling. I look forward to reading more of her books in the future. 

The appeal of this one was how easily I could see and sympathize with all sides of the situation. There is so much to talk about regarding medical and scientific ethics. I don’t think anyone know what they would do in certain circumstances until they found themselves in it. I’m not sure I would have a whole other baby on the off chance their cord blood was curative. But then I also don’t have a child with a rare, treatment-resistant form of leukemia, either. Maybe I would have had baby after baby until one was a match, or gone the route the Fitzgeralds took and basically had a designer baby who would be a perfect match. I just don’t know. And neither do you, unless you’ve already lived it. 

I am not sure what I would feel about discovering that the cord blood only worked for a while and now the leukemia is no longer in remission, thus needing to turn to the younger child again for more blood and platelets. Or for that to be the constant situation. Or to have both children in the hospital because one has leukemia and the other is recovering from whatever else was done to her to donate blood, marrow, and other body fluids to the other. 

I really don’t know what I would do if my child was guaranteed to die without a new kidney, but might not make it off the table even if she did get her sister’s organ. I don’t know how to weigh the almost-certain death of one child against the life-long risks associated with losing one kidney for the other child, not to mention that the kidney donation itself is a major surgery with many weeks of recovery time required. 

And poor Jesse! Who is Jesse? He’s Anna and Kate’s brother. Yeah, his parents and usually his sisters forget about him all the time, too. I’d act out if I were in his shoes. I don’t need to have lived the same experiences to know at least that much. 

The parents of these kids were given the short straw for sure. But so did their children. This isn’t Never Let Me Go or The Unit. We don’t breed or keep people for the sole purpose of giving other people their organs. I know they only thought they would need Anna’s cord blood. But it still feels morally wrong to me to have a baby even for that one-time donation. I think if I were that kid, I would probably feel very used and mostly unwanted, that I was only here because of that and otherwise, they didn’t want me in the first place. 

I liked the lawyer, Campbell Alexander, for taking on Anna’s case for free, partly because of his own lack of control over his body and partly because Anna refused to take no for an answer. He did his job and won her case and then had to use his new Power of Attorney over Anna in the most heartbreaking way. This ending, BTW, was entirely different in the film version of this book, which I watched after I finished reading it. The movie ending sucked. The book’s end was so much more poignant. I can’t fathom why on earth the screenwriters would change it.

In the end, I loved this book for its multitude of ways it got me thinking. The fact that it was written in such an engaging and easy manner, with characters who I cared about, made it that much better. I am looking forward to reading more books by Picoult. That’s one good thing about coming to the party so very late – now I have a plethora of her books to choose from!

book review · fantasy · sci-fi

Binti: The Complete Trilogy

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BintiBinti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

Genre: sci-fi

Setting: Earth, Ooma Uni, and spaaaaaaaaace!

I read it as a(n): paperback

Source: my own collection 

Length: 358 pp

Published by: Daw

Her Grace’s rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Binti is a young woman from Earth, a member of the Himba people of Namibia. She is what is known as a master harmonizer, a person who has a skill in bringing balance to all, usually through math. Her role is to succeed her father as her tribe’s master harmonizer. However, that is upended when Binti is accepted into the prestigious Oomza Uni, an entire planet devoted to learning. Binit runs away against her parents’ wishes to study, but while her ship is en route, it is attacked by the warlike Meduse, leaving her the traumatized only survivor. Binti eventually forms a bond with Okwu, one of the Medusae from the attack, and a link is created between their two peoples, paving the way for an unusual peace.

I read these novellas in the form of an omnibus paperback, so I can’t really separate the three stories in my mind. To me, they’re all one story. But, as always, I am impressed with Okorafor’s skill in creating such rich characters and culture in a relatively short span of pages. The Himba people are not fictional; they have a long and complex culture from which Okorafor could draw. But she fleshed out the people in ways that made them entirely real. I cared about every character on the page, which is a rare thing for me. 

I loved Binti’s search for herself, her bravery in leaving the only home she’d ever known in an attempt to create a different life for herself. The act of leaving home, becoming independent, learning new things about yourself is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves. I feel bad for people who never experience that in any way. 

The ways that humans and the Medusae were at conflict and how they resolved their problems is sadly still a relevant metaphor for human society as a whole. We seem plagued with people, whether groups or individuals, who only care about enriching themselves or enforcing their agenda and worldview. There isn’t enough peace anywhere. So much can be said about this but, as I’ve said for years, SFF is an ideal medium in which to discuss real-world issues. Binti is no different. There were many themes that made me think: home, community, identity, conflict, colonialism, friendship. I’m sure examinations of these themes and more could be made, and wind up longer than the book itself. I love that; books that make me think while also providing a good story are to be treasured.

Overall, I liked this story, though I think I enjoyed Okorafor’s other works that I’ve read a little more. This trilogy (plus the short story included in the omnibus edition) seemed to focus more on how to fit in social issues than how it impacts the plot, so I think there are some gaps that need to be filled. But still, the Binti trilogy is a terrific story and one I definitely recommend. 

Favorite lines:

  • Will his happiness kill him? (Okwu asked this without a hint of irony or sarcasm. Me, too, Okwu. Me. Too. Deeply suspicious of happiness.)
book review · fantasy

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

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the hundred thousand kingdomsThe Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin (Website, Twitter)

Genre: fantasy

Setting: the city of Sky

I read it as a(n): audiobook

Narrator: Cassaundra Freeman

Source: my own collection 

Length: 11:47:00

Published by: Daw 

Her Grace’s rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Yeine Darr is the daughter of a disgraced noblewoman of the Arameri, the rulers of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Their seat of power is in the city of Sky. Yeine is summoned to Sky by her grandfather, her mother’s father, who is also the ruler of the Arameri. To her utter shock and horror, he names her as one of his three heirs to the throne. Now she will be expected to compete against two cousins she never knew for the throne. While she is learning the ways of Sky, rife with political machinations and corruption, Yeine also learns that several gods are held by the Arameri as slaves after they lost to the god Bright Itempas in the Gods’ War. Now those gods are bitter, unsurprisingly, and they have a plan to help Yeine win in her struggle for the throne.

This first instalment in Jemisin’s The Inheritance Trilogy is, in many ways, a pretty typical fantasy narrative: a young warrior woman loses her family, is named an heir to the kingdom, falls in love with a god, is used as a pawn by a variety of people, and eventually is victorious. But Jemisin sort of upends a lot of traditions as well, which was her stated goal in writing her novels. 

The people who were the ruling class, the Arameri, were the highest class because the high priestess of the goddess Itempas was an Arameri when the Gods’ War occurred millennia ago. So that part makes sense within this story. I really like how Jemisin then creates a society that is more and more corrupt the closer one gets to the gods. I don’t think it is untrue at all here, but it is certainly not what most people want to believe. This story tackles it head-on. 

The world building in this novel is amazing. That is one of the best things about Jemisin’s writing. I did find it a little hard to keep track of at times, which might be partly because I listened to the audiobook rather than eyeball reading this one. Sometimes the dialogue was not well marked that I could tell, so I wasn’t sure who was speaking for kind of big sections of discussion. But I’m not sure, again, how much that is a function of listening to the book instead of reading it. 

In line with the rich world building are many, MANY different themes. Off the top of my head, there is slavery, colonialism, racism, power, tradition, and religion. These are intricately woven throughout the entire narrative in ways that are sometimes startling or subversive. It’s a great way to get readers to think about many things we believe and hold dear without really knowing WHY we do. So many traditions in this novel were followed simply because that’s what has always been done, which is of course why something is a tradition. But if a tradition blows, then you should change it or abandon it. Columbus Day, for example, isn’t a traditional holiday we should still be observing in the 21st century. It is being replaced in many states by Indigenous Peoples Day, which is far better. Change can be a good thing. 

Every single character in this book is richly nuanced and complex with the exception, I think, of Scimena Arameri, Yeine’s cousin and another potential heir. She was all hate and bitterness, all the time. I’m not too sure why this one character was so one-dimensional but I’m sure Jemisin has her reasons. I may have just not picked up on what it was. She was an easy character to despise, though. Otherwise, the rest of the cast was really interesting, even those who you don’t like. 

Looking forward to getting into the second book!