Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult


Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, is five and has Osteogenesis Imperfecta. When you have OI, your bones are so brittle that they break tremendously easily. Already, Willow has had more than fifty broken bones in her life. When the opportunity arises for the O'Keefes to sue the obstetrician who was caring for Charlotte during her pregnancy, Charlotte jumps at the chance to get help financially (a settlement), since Willow will need special care her whole life. In filing a lawsuit, however, Charlotte is saying to the world that she would have ended her pregnancy, had she known her child was going to be born with OI. To make matters worse, Charlotte's doctor is her best friend, Piper. Also, Sean is against the lawsuit from the beginning. In the novel, the reader sees the story unfold from the points of view of Charlotte, Sean, Piper, Charlotte and Sean's teenage daughter, Amelia (who has problems of her own), as well as Marin, the O'Keefe's lawyer. Picoult weaves a story full of love, heartbreak, and the hard choices one has to make as a parent. It is similar to her bestseller, My Sister's Keeper.

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