Between Friends

By Kristy Kiernan

Well, its about time I put a little effort into my reading hobby.  I went down to the local library and checked out 10, yes TEN, books to read in the next few weeks.  I picked out a few whose authors I recognized and then I tried for some new material.  This novel was one of those "new" ones.  I haven't even heard of, let alone read Kristy Kiernan before, but I will in the future!  In all honesty, I picked this book because of its cover and I hadn't read a good contemporary women's literature book lately.  I was fairly surprised to find I was captivated in the first few pages and finished the novel in two days.  It was a really easy read, with lovable, but flawed characters and the relationships are anything but perfect.  It was the most realistic and non-post-apocalyptic novel I've read in a few months!

The two main characters are Ali and Cora; girls who have been best friends for decades.  Ali has Cora to thank for the opportunity of becoming a mother.  When faced with the lonely road of infertility, it was Cora who volunteered her eggs and gave Ali the life she most desired.  Now, almost sixteen years later, Cora returns to the "family" she helped start with some devastating news that will change their relationships and quite possibly, their future.

Similar Novels: Handle with Care By Jodi Picoult and All He Ever Wanted By Anita Shreve

Length: 322 Pages

Copyright: 2010

House Rules

By Jodi Picoult

Well, my favorite author has written another novel and has stayed true to her modus operandi. This book, like the other before, deals with a controversial topic and ends with a court battle. I must say, this storyline is getting a little old and even though I love how Picoult deals with the emotional end of everything. I have to admit, I guessed the outcome of the novel in the first 100 pages. The topic for this book deals with Asperger's Syndrome. For those of you who don't know, Asperger's Syndrome is a form of high functioning autism. The main character in this novel believes her son developed the syndrome after a series of vaccinations. However, the autism and vaccination link is not the topic of the court battle.

A devoted mother, Emma, finds herself in unfamiliar territory after one of her sons is arrested for murder. Emma refuses to believe her oldest child has the capacity to commit murder. Her son has Asperger's Syndrome and what seems normal to Emma (refusing to socialize, no eye contact, and body ticks) looks like a sign of guilt to law enforcement. This novel shows how a simple diagnosis for one child becomes a lifetime of adjustments for the entire family.

Similar Novel: The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty

Copyright: March 2010

Length: 532 pages

Handle With Care

by Jodi Picoult

As you well know, Jodi Picoult is my FAVORITE author of all time. Ever since I read her My Sister's Keeper in 2004, I've been a huge fan. Her new book is quite interesting, if not a little predictable. While I seriously enjoyed reading the novel, I couldn't help but wonder if I had read the book before. It seemed to follow the story line of My Sister's Keeper a little to closely. The characters were different and the challenges were unique, but the overall theme seemed copied. The main character's daughter has an illness, the family gets torn apart, the father moves out and nobody seems to understand the mother's point of view. It is eerily similar to her previous novel.
In this new novel, the main character is the mother of a five-year-old with brittle bone disease. The daughter is constantly in and out of hospitals and is now on a medication that the insurance company won't cover. Forced to deal with mounting bills and more in the future, the mother makes the decision to sue her pediatrician for "wrongful birth." That means, if she had known about her daughter's condition while she was pregnant, she would've had an abortion. This strikes her husband as evil saying it means she wishes her daughter had never been born. It also puts a wedge in between the mother and her best friend, who happened to be her obstetrician. While the reason behind the trial is money to secure her daughter's future, the main character wonders at what cost will she protect her daughter?


Similar Novel: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Length: 496 pages
Copyright: March 2009

My Sister's Keeper

By Jodi Picoult

This is one of my favorite books of all time!! After reading this book, I went on a rampage and read every Jodi Picoult book I could get my hands on. Anna's parents conceived her so that she could be a bone marrow donor for her older sister who has leukemia. Anna's life is full of surgeries, transfusions, and shots. This book follows her struggle to free herself from the role she was born to play. In the first chapter of the book, thirteen year old Anna hires a lawyer and a child advocate because she wants control of her own body. This book shows her struggle in the court system as well as at home with a mother who can't understand why she would condemn her sister to death.

As I mentioned before, this was the first Jodi Picoult book I ever read. As I found out later, most of Jodi Picoult's books deal with moral issues as well as family dilemmas. Jodi Picoult's books have covered sexual abuse by a priest, death penalty, stigmata, assisted suicide, child abuse, abortion, and more. Most of her novels center around or end with a court battle. My Sister's Keeper is no different. The novel builds up to a major court decision that they hold until the very end of the book and I found myself wavering from one side to the other. It is family drama at it's best.

Similar Novels: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and The Pact by Jodi Picoult

Length: 423 pages

Copyright: 2004