Handle With Care

I am a big fan of Jodi Picoult, and I know this isn't the first time I've said it. I was really excited to see she had a new book coming out this year, and I picked it up as soon as it had been released. I didn't know the basic premise of Handle With Care when I bought it, but I didn't much care. Now I wish I did a little more research on it... I wasn't really happy with this book upon finishing it. I would have read it anyway, but I probably wouldn't have put off reading other books to read this one first.

Handle With Care tells the story of the life of Willow O'Keefe, a young girl suffering with OI (osteogensis imperfecta), or brittle bone disease. Her disease affects the life of her mother, Charlotte, and her father, Sean, as well as her sister, Amelia. On a trip to Disney Land, Willow breaks two bones slipping on a napkin, which puts her in the hospital, her parents in jail and her sister in foster care. Sean visits a lawyer, wanting to sue for damages. The lawyer says they have a case, just not the one they had thought. The O'Keefe's file a wrongful birth suit against their OB-GYN (who happens to be Charlotte's best friend), saying that if the OI had been detected sooner, Charlotte could have aborted the baby. What ensues is an epic legal battle that pits friend against friend, husband against wife, and mother against daughter.

One of the main problems that I had with Handle With Care was the character of Charlotte. I could not empathize with her at all, and I disliked her from very early on. The other problem I had was that I felt like I had read it all before, in her novel My Sister's Keeper. There's a major medical crisis between one of two daughters, and an ensuing legal battle because of it. Hmm... yeah, too familiar.

I give Handle With Care a 3 out of 5. I enjoyed the intigrated recipes within the story, and I learned a lot of trivia throughout the pages. Neither, though, was enough to get a higher rating. I could have just re-read My Sister's Keeper and been alright.