Handle With Care

HANDLE WITH CARE: Jodi Picoult: Atria: Fiction: 477 pgs.

Sean and Charlotte O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, suffers from a brittle bone disease, a condition that has left her susceptible to painful breaks since before her birth, demands more time and money than her parents can afford, and leads her teenage half-sister to desperate attempts for attention. When an attorney suggests that the O’Keefes sue the doctor who provided Charlotte’s prenatal care, Charlotte agrees, although the doctor is her best friend and the case is a “wrongful birth” suit predicated on the idea that if the O’Keefes had been informed of Willow’s condition earlier, they would have terminated the pregnancy.

Jodi Picoult once again examines the tricky gray areas of medicine, law, and family life. As always, her characters are well-developed and multi-faceted, grappling with complicated ethical issues that are not presented as straight-forward right and wrong choices. This title has a plot and feeling similar to the author’s earlier book, My Sister’s Keeper.

MBC