"My Sister's Keeper"

Part 1

What would you do if your child was dying and the only way to save her was to create a "perfect" genetic match? Would you create another child through a petri dish for a 20% chance, or for any hope for that matter? And once that child was born and saved the other child how would you explain to them why they were conceived because eventually they will figure out they are donor to save the other child. Would you realize also that you push everything and everyone but the sick child to the side, causing everyone to feel isolated towards you? And how about the child that is sick could they feel the resentment that goes along with all of the hurt feelings from the siblings?

All of these unanswered questions start the story of a family who's 3 year old was diagnosed with terminal Leukemia and the only way to save her life is for a genetic match of bone marrow and the closest would be a sibling, and unfortunately their son is not a close enough match. So pushing aside all other things decide that having a specialist make their child in a petri dish holding up the hope that this person will save their daughters life, not understanding the consequences. When Anna is born, it's not all the fuss of a new baby, but it's to make sure you get that cord blood to the right place and pushed her aside to go check on their sick child, while also pushing aside their child at home. Then when that helped Katie, she got sick again she needed something else, and then her kidneys failed and they expected Anna to give up one of hers. Not asking but basically consenting without thinking of anything but Katie. Not that Anna wanted Katie to die, but she wanted the choice to think of the consequences of her own life if she did give her kidney. And the other part of the family was falling apart too, Jesse was living over the garage basically drinking, smoking and doing drugs and as long as he stayed out of trouble his parents left him alone because in his eyes he was no good to them. Then he started down the path of getting attention or thrills by lighting fires that his father has to go put out on abandoned buildings, since his Dad is a Firefighter.

This story is sad because now the daughter, Anna feels she wants to have the right to say no, so she contacts an attorney who represents her and her family now completely thinks she is doing it to kill Katie when in all reality all she wants is a choice to decide if it's right for her own body. Not having her parents make that choice as their could be consequences down the line. When her parents get served the papers her mother is totally misunderstanding the point and sure her daughter is acting out for attention and once again not listening. Katie is turning for the worse but her life isn't Anna's responsibility it's all in God's hands which her Mother is definitely forgetting.

As this story continues I am hoping it will show her Mother the true meaning of listening and not forget she has her entire family and that faith needs be her priority. Saving one child and leaving two behind lost, possibly hurting another physically is not the way. We all have our stories of our lives, and no medicine or person can decide our faith and only God have that power to save our lives.

Happy Reading!!!

Our next pick is......

"My Sister's Keeper"

By: Jodi Picoult

This excerpt came from here:

Anna came into the world via in vitro fertilation, so that she would be a genetic match for her older sister Kate, who was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia when she was 2 years old. When Anna was born, her cord blood was donated to Kate, but when the leukemia returned, Anna then had to donate blood and bone marrow. When Kate's kidney's fail, Anna is expected to donate one of her own, but she hires a lawyer to be medically emancipated from her parents and gain the right to make the decision herself. Her lawyer, Campbell Alexander, works for her pro bono.

I really had a hard time finding a synopsis for this book with all the publicity but can't wait to start reading!!!

Happy Reading!

"The Girls From Ames"

The rest of the story...

Well I have to say this book has been kicking my butt, we have been reading since May and finally last night I finished it! It's definitely not what I expected and pretty choppy and hard to follow at times, but in the books defense that could of been my fault since I was reading 2 other books with it.

This story, after reading the entire book was reflecting back on the twenty-some years that these 11 friends have come together and stayed together through thick and thin. They have had death, disease, losing husbands and children and so much more, and in the end they had each other whether it was an email or a hug from the closest Ames Sister they could find.

I know in my life I have had a lot of friends who have helped me through a lot of times, and I have kept the same Best Friend since we were 13 years old and we have our moments, and sometimes we don't talk for days or weeks but when we get back together it's like we have never been apart. That's what this story is about, the true friendship that women need to feel complete, someone who is always there for them through the good and the bad. Now I am not saying my loving husband isn't my best friend in other ways, but not in the way that both Terri and I have been through it all, and we continue to grow as time goes and when I am old and cranky she will be there to push my wheel chair or vice versa.

I hope in your lifetime, like the Ames Girls and my best friend you too find someone as special as that.

Until next time.......

"The Girls From Ames"

Part 1: Chapters 1-5

This is the story of eleven girls that lived in a place called Ames, each has their own unique story and unique way of ending up as an "Ames Girl". It was a clique but not one they intended but of course everyone saw them that way. The story begins, with the girls getting together for their annual reunion of once a year they all come together at someone's house for a weekend, even though some miss their families it's a time for them to renew the friendships that have fizzed out over the year.

This first part focuses on Marilyn, Karla, Kelly and Shelia who even though Kelly and Karla had some bad blood they somehow come together to bunk together at these events and in a way ground each other. One being very motherly and out of place without her kids, while the other is trying to get back the 20 years of her life spent married and unhappy. Even though their lives are so different they need each other to balance themselves out, and both to find a way to continue the connection that could very easily been lost between friends over the years. Many of the girls see Karla as a whiner and Kelly as to much of a partier but they need different personality to make the group go round.

Marilyn was the one that spreads the pictures out and kept the scrapbooks of all the thinks the girls had done over the years. She continually takes pictures and keeps notes to never forget who they were, are and will become. Marilyn's father was a confident to many of the girls and to the community, only wanting the best for everyone. She always had a looming thing that she was born because of her brother's death that the family never really got over, but yet moved on...if that makes sense....She respected her Father and tried to abide by his rules and when she messed up, she was more disappointed in herself than her father ever could be which is why he normally didn't punish her. I like to think of Marilyn as the glue of the group because by taking pictures and old letters, it kept them all weaved together in a sense to show why they are and always will be friends.

Finally, Shelia suddenly died at the age of 22 a very mysterious death. She lived life and and with her Father dying at the age of 47 it hit her family hard, but her Mother kept things in line as her Father would of wanted her too. Shelia went off to college and met a man they called Bud Man, and was out drinking when somehow she fell but no one really knows if she was pushed and being the second tragedy in Mrs. Walsh's family, she didn't push it As many as the Ames girls who could afforded to come to her funeral did, but the 5 that didn't never felt closure and started questioning how she really died, only Mrs. Walsh didn't want to pry as it was over and she didn't want to open old wounds so the mystery still continues as no one really knows how Shelia dies, and the group went from 11 to 10, but Shelia will never be forgotten.

To me this a great story about friends who no matter how far or close they are, they always keep in touch. I have always said if you can meet one person who is a true friend then your life is complete. I have been Best Friends with Terri since we were 13, and even though we don't always agree or don't call everyday no matter what like the bond of the Ames girls she is one person that I'll have in my life for the rest of my life. That to me is more important than anything, someone who has seen you at your worst and best, and no matter what will do anything for you that's what true friendship is and that is what these 11 Girls always have had and always will.

Until our next section...

Happy Reading!!

Kel

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

For our next book...


From the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture comes a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became.

Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child’s illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life’s joys and challenges -- and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.

The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter, their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist, as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship. It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women’s lives – their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters – and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them.

The Girls from Ames is the story of a group of ordinary women who built an extraordinary friendship. With both universal insights and deeply personal moments, it is a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

About the Author
Jeffrey Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal columnist and coauthor, with Randy Pausch, of The Last Lecture, the #1 New York Times bestseller now translated into 41 languages. Zaslow attended Dr. Pausch’s famous lecture and wrote the story that sparked worldwide interest in it. The Girls From Ames also grew out of one of Zaslow’s columns

The Five People You Meet In Heaven

First off I would like to apologize to our readers. My book reviews are not as eloquent as Kelli's. We really need to urge her to write her own book!

The Five People You Meet In Heaven is an quick and easy read that makes you think about your own life while reading it. It is about the simple things that make your life what it is. Things that you would not normally even think about or the people that you meet in passing that truly touch your life or you touch theirs.

It is an interpretation of how heaven looks like through the eyes of the main character, Eddie. On the basis of five different encounters, Eddie learns the lessons of life, sacrifice, anger, love and forgiveness. The book begins with the end. After detailing the last moments of Eddie's death, the author then explains how heaven looks like through Eddie's conversations with five people he knew in life: the Blue Man, Captain, Ruby (and his father), Marguerite (who is his wife) and a little girl by the name of Tala. From each of these characters, Eddie learned something in his death what he could not have understood in life.

It is a story of closure and a story of purpose, of making sense out of the twists and injustices of life and of finding meaning in the small interactions that happen every day.

I hope that you all take a moment to read this book, it will truly change the way that you perceive your everyday lives.

Until our next read...

Adriane

Our next Book.......

"The Five People You Meet in Heaven"

I choose this book as a recommendation from a friend, so here it is our next big pick!!!

Amazon.com Review:

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs. Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Publishers Weekly:

"At the time of his death, Eddie was an old man with a barrel chest and a torso as squat as a soup can," writes Albom, author of the bestselling phenomenon Tuesdays with Morrie, in a brief first novel that is going to make a huge impact on many hearts and minds. Wearing a work shirt with a patch on the chest that reads "Eddie" over "Maintenance," limping around with a cane thanks to an old war injury, Eddie was the kind of guy everybody, including Eddie himself, tended to write off as one of life's minor characters, a gruff bit of background color. He spent most of his life maintaining the rides at Ruby Pier, a seaside amusement park, greasing tracks and tightening bolts and listening for strange sounds, "keeping them safe." The children who visited the pier were drawn to Eddie "like cold hands to a fire." Yet Eddie believed that he lived a "nothing" life-gone nowhere he "wasn't shipped to with a rifle," doing work that "required no more brains than washing a dish." On his 83rd birthday, however, Eddie dies trying to save a little girl. He wakes up in heaven, where a succession of five people are waiting to show him the true meaning and value of his life. One by one, these mostly unexpected characters remind him that we all live in a vast web of interconnection with other lives; that all our stories overlap; that acts of sacrifice seemingly small or fruitless do affect others; and that loyalty and love matter to a degree we can never fathom. Simply told, sentimental and profoundly true, this is a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership. Bringing into the spotlight the anonymous Eddies of the world, the men and women who get lost in our cultural obsession with fame and fortune, this slim tale, like Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, reminds us of what really matters here on earth, of what our lives are given to us for.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Happy Reading!