Today's News and Views folder includes an item from USA Today on the movie version of My Sister's Keeper, the Jodi Picoult novel my daughter read in her English class earlier this year. I read a fair amount of the book along with her, enough to appreciate that it gives a pretty well-rounded look at a very touchy subject: the moral ambiguity involved in conceiving one child to serve as a donor in an endless struggle to save an older sibling from leukemia.
If you haven't read the book and do not want to have the ending spoiled for you, STOP READING NOW. I had the ending spoiled for me by my niece, who, in learning her cousin was reading it, said, "Oh, is that the one where the girl dies in a car crash at the end?" I don't actually think my niece has ever read the book, I think she just heard about the ending and likes being the one who knows everything. But I digress.
The movie version, due out in June and starring Cameron Diaz as the mom and Abigail Breslin as the donor sister, will have a different ending -- presumably one that allows the perky young star who made her name in Little Miss Sunshine to make it to the closing credits. This is not sitting well with some fans of the book. The USA Today article by Deirdre Donahue quotes a sixteen-year-old lamenting an ending that would go against the book's message "that sad things in life are going to happen and some things can't be reversed."
Me? I like a happy ending. One sadness less in a story with plenty of sadness will make me more likely to see the film, and I won't be one throwing popcorn at the screen if everybody lives. What about you? Have you been looking forward to this movie? Less now, or more? And are you psyched for Picoult's new book, due out today, which according to another USA Today article "takes on the controversial questions of abortion and disabled children, as the mother of a child with brittle-bone disease sues her OB-GYN for a 'wrongful birth'"?
Share your thoughts in the comments, and check the Today's News file throughout the day for more articles of special-needs interest.
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Cover image courtesy of Simon & Schuster
This is my most favorite book EVER! I have SO been looking forward to the movie, but I am kind of bummed they’re changing the ending. It needs to be left as it is. Just my opinion though! I can’t WAIT to read her new book, I own them all so far!
I thought the ending in the book was an unnecessary twist of the knife. Overall, I am unlikely to see the movie because I didn’t like this book that much anyway.
I love this book, i am SO MAD that they changed the ending. That was the reason i loved this book so much, because the ending was so unepected, but realisticly sad.
I haven’t finished the book but by the looks of it Anna gets in a car crash and is on life support and donates her organs to Kate and who knows who else. I like the movie way better. I don’t like the book that much and the movie is way better off than the book is.
I haven’t read the book but just watched the movie. I did hear something about the endings being different. Having watched the movie I felt the ending was very realistic. Without having the read the book it sounds more like a contrived ending whose purpose is to “prove a point.” While the ending of the book could happen in real life it just seems far more likely for things to conclude the way they did in the movie. All in all though I think both endings are valuable.