My Sister's Keeper

Jodi Picoult definitely knows how to manipulate emotions. When I picked this book up, I was immediately dragged into the storyline by the plot devices Picoult chose – terminal illnesses, family dynamics, legal proceedings – but as I read it became increasingly clear to me that Picoult chose these things specifically because she knew they'd keep people reading. It was manipulative! I didn't care about these characters because she wrote them well, I cared about them because you're supposed to care when a kid has cancer. If you don't care, you're heartless.

So it wasn't Picoult's writing that did it, because she certainly isn't the best writer in the world – sure, she knows how to zing you with a heartwrenching one-liner, and she knows how to place the cliches and “meaningful” statements at the ends of chapters and paragraphs to really get the tearjerking hook into you – but it's all manipulation, and it's all pretty cheap. Once I realized what I was reading I almost felt dirty, like I'd been tricked.

And one other quibble I have with this book – changing fonts between narrators is jarring. Your eyes get used to reading in arial and the next chapter's in times new roman? That's not cool. I had to put the book down and take a break between each chapter because of it. I didn't like that at all.