Saturday, January 3, 2009

Book Alert: New Jodi Picoult Novel


I know it's not like she needs us to promote her book for her, but ever since I saw her speak last year I've become an even bigger fan of hers. When I saw her speak, she was telling us about this book that she had just finished and it was called Handle with Care: A Novel. From how she describes it, I think it's going to be on par with My Sister's Keeper: A Novel.

When Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated – she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance – words that her husband can’t abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she’s suing isn’t just her physician – it’s her best friend.

Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all – would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying? ~jodipicoult.com

I'm very excited for this book to be released and will be going to a book store on March 3, 2009 to grab my copy of it.

6 comments:

Meg89 said...

I really need to read one of her books, I got half way through Nineteen Minutes, but it was an audio book I was listening to driving home for a holiday and I never finished it. My roommate reads her books religiously and is always recommending them. Maybe I'll pick this one up, it sounds good.

Julie said...

Meg - I would definitely make My Sister's Keeper or The Pact your first foray into Jodi's books. Those are 2 of my favorites.

-Julie

Marg said...

This does sound like it could be very interesting.

Anonymous said...

Sounds pretty interesting. I was less than happy with Picoult's novel about the high school shooting, but this one sounds similar to My Sister's Keeper, which is my favorite.

Jenn said...

Sounds interesting, but I just can't do Picoult. I had bad dreams last night just thinking about this book. I read to escape reality, and her books are just a little too much reality for me.

Staci said...

I'm anxiously waiting for the release date of this one!!