
Of Narration, Subplots and Unsatisfactory Endings – A Review of My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Please note that the following review contains heavy spoilers.
When the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, I told myself that 2024 would be the year for reading more books. With that resolution in mind, I picked up one of Jodi Picoult’s bestsellers—My Sister’s Keeper. The synopsis piqued my interest, and I was intrigued by how it was based on a true story.
I’d also read reviews that described this novel as an “emotionally riveting” tale of a little girl who makes the very difficult decision to sue her parents for medical emancipation. Now, at the expense of possibly sounding pretentious, I’ll admit that I enjoy books that make me grapple with my morals, and My Sister’s Keeper certainly delivers a story where sacrifice, sorrow and suffering are experienced at every turn.
There are lessons to be learnt from the ups and downs in one’s life, and grief is a cruel teacher. Although we tell ourselves that time will heal our scars, the loss of a loved one leaves a void in our hearts that may never be filled. The same can be said for fictional tragedies. As we follow the main characters on their journey, their problems become our own, and we learn lessons from the many hardships that they face before their story comes to an end.
That said, I have to wonder if there are any lessons that can be gleaned from My Sister’s Keeper.
Review

Overall rating: 3.0 / 5.0 stars
I struggled to give My Sister’s Keeper a higher rating than this. The narration, subplots and the ending are all aspects that I deemed unsatisfactory. That’s not to say that My Sister’s Keeper is a bad book—on the contrary, it was a decent read, and characterization is certainly one of its strengths. However, the points discussed below felt somewhat lacking to me, and this ultimately affected my enjoyment of the story.
The Narration
Picoult employs a non-linear narrative structure for My Sister’s Keeper, or the kind of narrative where the events described are NOT in a chronological order. It’s a common technique—one that is particularly useful for first-person POVs, as it gives authors more leeway to explore the past and present without chronicling the events in a character’s life since their birth.
I also firmly believe that first-person POVs do a better job of showing you a character’s innermost thoughts while pointing you toward the very real possibility that the character in question is an unreliable narrator. After all, no one ever perceives themselves in the same way as they are perceived by others.
Picoult also switches POVs, and this gives us an opportunity to experience what life is like for the many characters in this novel. This is where the narration misses the mark, confusing the readers with the many POVs that are used to get its point across.
At the crux of the issue is Anna, whose narration is the most important. We see the inner conflict that this little girl experiences as she is guilt-tripped and underestimated by several characters. Then, perhaps in an attempt to make us sympathize with those other characters, we get sections that are narrated by Anna’s family unit: Kate, the weakened sister suffering from leukaemia; Jesse, the troubled brother dealing with a drug addiction; Brian, the conflicted father who wants the best for his children; and Sara, the persistent mother who struggles to understand why Anna is defiant.
Five POVs are a lot to deal with, and then, we have those of Campbell and Julia—two other characters with a shared history that end up helping Anna along the way.
To Picoult’s credit, her characters are interesting. All of them are deeply flawed and realistic. That said, seven POVs squeezed into 400 pages were too much to deal with, and the constant shifts from one person’s POV to the other made it difficult for me to keep up with what was going on.

The Subplots
There is no hard and fast rule that a subplot must connect to the plot. It could have absolutely no relation to the events of the main story, even though the characters may be the same. The problem with My Sister’s Keeper is that there are too many subplots spread across its pages—so much so that the core conflict takes a back seat as the other characters work through their issues. It’s a pity as the concept of a young girl defying her parents for medical emancipation is a fascinating one, but it ends up getting buried under layers of character development for everyone besides Anna herself.
To be more specific, Anna’s fight for freedom fades into the background as the readers are taken on a detour through Campbell and Julia’s shared history, Jesse’s life as an arsonist and a drug addict, and etc.
I’d like to believe that Picoult went through this hassle to make her characters seem more human—to show us that Julia, for example, has a reason for acting so wary around Campbell. However, this only took the spotlight away from Anna’s story, and it was her story that intrigued me in the first place. It pains me to say this but Anna is ultimately neglected even in her own story.

The Ending
What makes a good ending? Honestly, it depends. Writing a powerful ending is not a requirement for a light-hearted tale, but most writers strive to conclude their books in a satisfactory or sensible manner. My Sister’s Keeper does neither; in fact, its ending left me feeling very puzzled. Try as I might, I struggle to understand what Picoult wanted to achieve with this outcome.
The more I read, the more I felt as though Anna was never able to grow into her own person. From her conception to her end, she retains her title as her sister’s keeper, and I can tell that Picoult had planned this ending from the start. However, I thought it was a disservice to Anna’s character that she is declared brain-dead from a car accident after her victory. It broke my heart that she was willing to donate her kidney to Kate all along, and that she had only just begun to envision a future for herself when it was ripped from her.
Anna’s accident is the perfect example of a deux ex machina, or the kind of plot device where a moral dilemma is suddenly and unexpectedly resolved. Could you argue that there’s foreshadowing to prove that Picoult had envisioned this outcome from the start? Absolutely. That said, the moral dilemma that intrigued readers from the start is resolved in a very unsatisfactory manner. Perhaps my bitterness toward this ending would not be so great had Anna been granted a few months to flourish as her own person.
Anna’s death affects the people around her greatly—her parents grieve her loss, and Kate miraculously survives after receiving Anna’s kidney, but she too grapples with the guilt of moving on with her life after losing her sister, including the guilt of initiating the lawsuit that led to Anna’s untimely demise. It is in this aftermath that Picoult’s prose shines with its reflections on grief, which certainly softened the blow of losing Anna so quickly. Even so, the sudden resolution dampened my enjoyment, and I have no doubt that I am not the only one who feels this way.

Final Thoughts
As the title suggests, Anna maintains her position as her sister’s keeper to the very end. The moral dilemma that ensues as she fights for the freedom to make her own medical decisions is an emotionally riveting one that tugs at one’s heartstrings, making one sympathize with all of the characters involved in Anna’s journey.
However, the decision to make this dilemma take the backseat for the other characters to shine was not a good one. Readers of the novel were ultimately presented with too many POVs that distracted them from the core issue. Just as how Anna spends her life being neglected by the people around her, she is ultimately neglected in her own story.
