"It was like a roller coaster. It was one heck of a crazy ride. It started out quite good but that is before you meet the badass high horizontal fall, the crazy loops or the tunnels where you don't know where you'll be heading, what'll happen next or even, what is happening now. But then after all those crazy rides, the rail just stop there. And you fall. Forced to obey the rules of gravity. And while you're floating in the air, you realized that you will never know what might happen next but at the same time, you can't hope for the best either."
Nice metaphor eh, no? Anyway, this is what the story is about:
At first the idea is abominable especially as it would mean standing up in court and saying that they wish that Willow had never been born which is not true. Also, it would mean bringing a lawsuit of malpractice against Charlotte’s obstetrician and best friend, Piper. They can hardly bear think about it but the prospect of a huge settlement would mean that they could meet the crippling cost of things not covered by insurance which will only rise as Willow gets older.
Okay, first thing first. I'm not a professional book reviewer. I don't talk about story lines or plot or any shit like that. I just mumbled whatever I thought about this book. And second, I don't know why I'm explaining this as I don't expect people to expect me to be a pro book reviewer. D'oh.
Back to the book. It's one heck of a good book. Why? Because it's the first book that I read that only took me one week to finish it. It's so absorbing.
But, I don't know if it was me being emotional or stuff but I remember when I was still young (I still am but just a teeny tiny little bit older) and I watch a sad movie and I went to bed wondering why and how and why again, questioning myself over and over again to sleep. Well, that's how I feel about this book. It kinda influence me that much I remember after I finish reading it I become a little bit (read: a lot) emotional and what-the-fuckery. It's like those book that kids read and then when they finished reading it they'll go to their mom to take comfort.
Whatever. Let me tell you how the stories goes.
- They're a happy family, the O'keefes - Sean, the father, Charlotte, the mother, with Amelia and Willow, their daughters. Willow is the one suffering from OI.
- They went to trip to Disneyland. Willow fell and broke, like, her ten millionth bone.
- The doctor treating her found like hundreds of fractures scars including the healing one and accuse the O'keefes to have been abusing their child. Charlotte forgot to bring the letter saying that her daughter has OI so She and Sean became a suspect, taken to custody and Amelia was taken away temporarily until everything is clear.
- When everything is clear, Sean and Charlotte was released to reunite with their daughters.
- Sean was pissed.
- He wants to sue.
- The lawyer said they can't sue all those people cause they're just doing their job. But they can sue for something else though - wrongful birth.
- This is where the f**ked-up starts.
- Charlotte went on meeting the lawyer behind her husband's back. And the person she's suing is her best friend, who's also the obstre-something-something-cian who firstly noticed that there's somthing wrong with Willow when she's still a fetus, Piper. Piper's daughter, Emma, is Amelia's best friend.
- Charlotte sue her best friend of 8 years without even having the guts to tell her.
- Charlotte ruins Piper's life.
- Charlotte almost ruins Piper's marriage too.
- Charlotte ruins Amelia's life too as now, Emma won't befriend with her anymore and the whole school was on Emma's side because it's Amelia's mother who's being a bitch and go on suing her best friend. Now, Amelia is an outcast in her school. Oh, and she's bulimic too. And she cut herself occasionally. Ah, teenagers.
- Sean don't wanna go on with the wrongful birth suing because he don't want to sue Piper and most importantly, he don't want to tell the world that he wish his daughter was never born.
- He went AGAINST Charlotte. Yes, he's on Piper's side.
- Charlotte ruins her marriage with Sean.
- The whole world is against Charlotte
- And Willow starts to question her mom if she was really wanted and loved by her.
- Willow saw Amelia cut herself in the bathroom.
- Willow tries to kill herself. And she's only six.
- Sean and Charlotte was on again.
- Charlotte finds out about Amelia's eating disorder trough Sean who heard it from Piper who was told by Emma on how she always hear Amelia throws up at school and saw her cutting herself.
- They want to send Emma away on rehab or camp or... something.
- Amelia was pissed.
- She follow the footsteps of her father and go against her mother in the case.
- Amelia told the court that her mother loves Willow, and this make Charlotte's chance of winning the case and get the money so that Willow can get every equipment and facility she'll be needing in the future and not live in hardships, thinner.
- Charlotte gets her wakeup call. She's not mad at Amelia because she knew that Amelia was just trying to protect her sister, Willow. Everyone does.
- For some reason, they won the case. Maybe the juror sympathized them or something.
- They get 8-fucking-million dollars.
- Poper's life is ruin. Now she worked as a nurse.
- They live happily again as a family but they never cashed the check. Charlotte now write a cooking book, Amelia is recovering and now she's some sorta painter or something and Willow haven't had any broken bones for months.
- Willow get drown in a freezing pond. There's a big chances that she die. Well, if you pay attention carefully, she did die.
- What?
- After all that, she just.... died?
Yes, if you ask me, that's kinda how the book goes.
The only other Jodi Picoult's work that I know is 'My Sister's Keeper' and that pon because I watch the movie. So did Jodie like to kill her main character? Will Jodi become my next favorite author? Well we'll see about that later.
What I like about this novel is how Jodi can elaborate the whole situations in details - what it feel like to find your real mother if you're adopted, what it feels like to be bulimic, what it feels like to have a daughter with fatal illness. I kinda respect author who only writes their novel after doing months or maybe even years of researches. It just feel so damn real. I don't know about her - if she's bulimic, or adopted - but the way she tells the story is like as if she's been trough all of that and now she's telling back the story to us.
I also love the emotion in this novel - the love, sadness, anger, confusion. I especially love when Charlotte describes how much she loves her daughter and how she's doing all this for her own sake - and that's why I can still feel for her although she had messed up a lot of other people's life, especially that of her best friend (I even hope that she'll win the lawsuit). And I also love how they bahasekan Willow as 'you' troughout the whole story, to show that she's the main point of the story and how she had affected the lifes of all the characters.
Well I can go on and on and on but that'll be too much words and my English is not that good and I've still got a report to do so I'll just stop here. Well, overall I think this novel is good. It's great. I'll say it's the second best novel I've ever read - after The Memoirs Of A Geisha.
Oh and talking about that, I'll get to that book's review later #procrastinate :p
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