Jodi Picoult? You call THAT shit *writing*?

[gategrrl]

Does anyone here read Jodi Picoult books? There's a movie coming out soon, starring one of the girls from Medium called My Sister's Keeper that's based on her book of the same name.

I picked the book up for a brief skim while I was waiting in the grocery store for a prescription. In short, the book focuses on "What would happen if a child, who was expressly born to medically assist an older child, grew to the age where she didn't want to be pushed around anymore and go through any more tests, or even donate an organ?"

If I'd bought this damned book, I would have hurled it out the window and added it to my growing imaginary pile of books waiting for a bonfire.

Not because of the subject matter. No. I think the subject matter IS an interesting one. No, it's because I read the final two chapters. And I am glad I did.  Let's put it this way, without spoiling anyone who is planning on reading this piece of crap or going to see the movie:

Picoult chickens out at the end of her story. Oh, she takes it to a logical conclusion, and then pulls some Chick Lit twist shit that I find contemptible. She takes the EASY way out. She takes the emotional "heart-wringer" "twist" ending that negates EVERYTHING the title character was fighting for. And this isn't the only time she's pulled this last-minute crap in one of her books. Oh no.

She LOVES to take the easy plot out.

Comments

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

Picoult did a brief stint on the rebooted Wonder Woman comic. Her stories were less than memorable.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I can believe it. :-P

[superbadgirl]

You mean she didn't have the ill sister murder the created-to-be-a-donor sister to "save" her the way this exact storyline was done on CSI? That left me feeling ooky, but it was supposed to.

I suppose she couldn't go there without it being a complete rip-off, but what a shame to have the girl go from, "Hellz no!" to "Here, have my heart; I wasn't using it and you are more important than me."

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Should I go ahead and tell you what the ending was?

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I spilled the ending to lovellama just below, if you want to read it. It does have a similar ending, btw. Main difference is, the older sister doesn't mercy kill her to prevent her from being used any longer. It's a car accident that leaves everything hunky-dory. Except for the dead girl, whose only happy moment is when she's granted the right to say no.

Bitch.

[scarlettslegacy.livejournal.com]

Picoult did a story called 'Change of Heart' which was basically a rip-off of Stephen King's 'The Green Mile', so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she watched that CSI ep and thought, hey, if I make a few changes, I can call it an original idea!

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

I'm never going to read this. How does it end?

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll spill. If you read SBG's telling of the CSI version of this plot in her post just before your post, here's how it ends:

The younger sister, bred to be her sister's lifeline, takes her parents to court: her parents are planning on making her donate a kidney to her older sister. The younger sister wins her court case and only then does her shitty obsessed asshole cuntish mother realize what she's put both of her daughters through. RIGHT AFTER the younger sister has signed the papers for her emancipation, based on the basic principle that she has to be ASKED for body donations or tests, etc of any kind--she's killed in a car accident.

That's right. RIGHT AFTER.

So, what does her guardian decide to do? Donate her organs to the sister, and some other deserving souls who need her fresh, warm organs in order to survive.

There's no way for the girl (13 years old, btw) to give her consent. There's little indication that she wanted it that way, after having been treated exactly like a medical resource for her entire life.

Yeah. I'd say Picoult's handling of the ending shat great big donkey shit bricks.

My reading may have been rushed, but I didn't see the mother apologize at all for how she treated her daughter--both of them, by the way. The sick older sister, it turns out, is/was suicidal over the younger sister's sacrifices. Their older brother is ignored and is a pyromaniac.

I think...man, it's just so horrible and contemptible.

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

O.O

Oy!

[superbadgirl]

Oh, dear.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

OMG.

Thanks for the spoiler. That IS awful.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't often use that language...but this warranted it.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Huh. I almost feel like she was trying to go with some kind of irony here, but failed miserably.

[scarlettslegacy.livejournal.com]

Well, I got the impression through the book that Anna WANTED to helped Kate, just not at the cost that was being asked of her. So I could buy that Anna would want to donate her kidneys in a situation like her being killed in an unrelated accident. Doesn't negate the shittiness of the book, though.

In the movie, Anna gets her emancipation, and Kate dies. I liked that ending better. There's also more empahsis on Sara (the mum) realising she has to let go of Kate. They're both pretty crap in the way they deal with its issues (Sara NEVER says or thinks 'maybe I've done some lousy things to Anna', although there's a few points made that, if she could donate herself, she would) but the movie is slightly better.

The problem, like most of what I've seen of Picoult (yes, I'm a sucker for punishment - she wrote one good book and I kept reading in the hope she had written another good one), she comes up with a good concept and then totally pisses it away with shonky writing and broad stereotyping. Like 'Salem Falls' could have been a good look at humanity's inherent xenophobia or how these girls' sexuality was screwed up 'cos of their unhelathy relationships with their fathers, but instead, we get the 'evil wiccan' trope, and Picoult's trademark 'OMG! someone else did it! end of story!' twist that she thinks is clever.
.

[khek.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a better ending would have been to have the mother die and donate HER organs to save her daughter. (Although, if it was that easy, I'm guessing that would have already happened.)

I saw the commercial and predicted that one of the sisters would die anyway. I confess, I was hoping it would be the sick sister, and they wouldn't go for the schmaltzy sacrifice plot, but I guess I was wrong.

I think I read one Jody Piccoult novel before. The main character sacrificed herself to have her baby be born and died in the end of that one. Sounds like a trend...

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

You know what the awful thing of it is? I really like the actress playing the older, ill sister. She's gotten a lot of screentime on Medium this season, and she's just lovely and she's *good*.

I won't be buying this movie even if the DVD were cheap. Because I'd probably damage my TV when I hurl the DVD player at it when the conclusion rolls onto the screen.

I want to slap the writer, and I usually don't think about that.