When I first heard the premise of this book I was pretty sure I was not going to like it.
Who wants to read about a mother suing her OB for the ‘wrongful birth’ of her daughter who was born with a rare disability, osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).
But I had been captivated by the author’s most recent book, House Rules, so decided I would give this book a chance.
Using the heart wrenching struggle of a little girl with OI, aka Brittle Bone Syndrome, as the background, Picoult builds our sympathy for the family and then lets us watch as it falls apart.
Like watching a train wreck, the reader is fascinated and horrified at the same time.
The story shows how the choices we make have consequences and when you decide the ends justify the means, are you have to be ready to live with the consequences.
Although some of the twists and turns seemed forced, I enjoyed the story and was not sure what was going to happen up to including the last page. I look forward to reading the next book by the author!
Page: 452
“Parents aren’t the people you come from. They’re the people you want to be when you grow up.”
— One of the side stories in this book helps reinforce the fact that you must be careful what you wish for.
Page: 121
At one point I heard the mention of television: Don’t you think reporters would get wind of this? Is that what you really want? Dad said, and for a moment I thought how cool it would be to be on the news, until I remembered that being a poster child for dysfunctional family life wasn’t really how I wanted to spend my fifteen minutes of fame.
— Yes, not all publicity is good publicity. Especially if you are not a celebrity.
Page: 105
Your first seven breaks happened before you entered this world.
The next four happened minutes after you were born, as a nurse lifted you out of me.
Another nine, when you were being resuscitated in the hospital, after you coded.
The tenth: when you were lying across my lap and suddenly I heard a pop.
Eleven was when you rolled over and your arm hit the edge of the crib.
Twelve and thirteen were femur fractures; fourteen a tibia; fifteen a compression fracture of the spine.
Sixteen was jumping down from a stoop; seventeen was a kid crashing into you on a playground; eighteen was when you slipped on a DVD jacket lyon on the carpet.
We still don’t know what caused number nineteen.
Twenty was when Amelia was jumping on a bed where you were sitting; twenty-one was a soccer ball that hit your left leg too hard; twenty-two was when I discovered waterproof casting materials and bought enough to supply an entire hospital, now stocked in my garage.
Twenty-three happened in your sleep; twenty-four and twenty-five were a fall forward in the snow that snapped both forearms at once.
Twenty-six and twenty-seven were nasty fractures, fibula and tibia tenting through the skin at a nursery school Halloween party, where, ironically, you were wearing a mummy’s costume whose bandages I used to splint the breaks.
Twenty-eight happened during a sneeze; twenty-nine and thirty were ribs you broke on the edge of the kitchen table.
Thirty-one was a hip fracture that required a metal plate and six screws.
I stopped keeping track after that, until the ones from Disney World, which we had not numbered but instead named Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.
— One of the very few books that actually has made me tear-up as I read. The little girl suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta. Fifty-two broken bones by age five is unimaginable.
