The book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is a very interesting read. The story is told to us by the Fitzgerald family. The parents, Brian and Sarah have three children Jesse, Kate and Anna. When she was two, Kate was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia [APL]. In order to save their daughter's life, the parents received IVF treatments to conceive their second daughter so that she mould be a suitable donor for Kate. Now that Anna is thirteen, she is suing her parents to the rights to her own body.
This story focuses on the family's mental structure and as we see the lawsuit take affect we experience the turmoil of a family beak down. Picoult is a very talented author and she uses this advantage to the best of her abilities. Instead of focusing on just one character throughout the book, she enables us to see what this family is going through by changing the perspective in each chapter and sometimes having a chapter about a specific year.
During this book there were many different characters that appealed to me. Another one of Picoults talents is that she can make every character completely unique which gives us the feeling that we are spying on a struggling family which seems to be dealing with fresh heartbreak everyday, rather than just reading a book. I would have to say though that Sarah and Anna struck me as the strongest.
I enjoyed watching Anna's character develop throughout the book and to see her deal with very difficult situations again and again which I doubt most adults would be able to do quite so well. As the youngest in the family, Anna has had to grow up faster than most children would and often times finds herself feeling out of place in her own household. As the youngest of three kids myself, I really felt throughout this book that I could relate to Anna which for me, made the story much more realistic and believable. She is smart, cunning and has been very independent from a young age. Also as the theme of this book is quite sad, Anna was able to take a situation that for most would be upsetting and make it more lighthearted with her quick wit and wicked sense of humour. The thing that probably struck me the most about Anna would have to be her wisdom. All through the book she was very mature for her age, and at some points had me forgetting that I wasn't reading about and adult but rather a thirteen year old girl.
Sarah is the backbone of the Fitzgerald family, it is her that kept them going with her determination and strength. She is the mainly cares for her sick daughter Kate. She is probably the character which I admire the most. Throughout Kate's illness she has had to make almost impossible decisions, run the household and look after her other children. After reading this book and seeing the about of pain this woman has gone through to keep her family intact you have no choice but to look up to her. Other than caring for Kate she has had to rear two other children and keep her marriage afloat and up until the lawsuit she believed that they were doing okay. Now readers get to see her life spiralling out of her control while she struggles to hold everything together.
Jesse is actually my favourite character from this book. Although there are many excellent people to choose from I found myself completely drawn to him. Jesse is the eldest of the family and often gets overlooked by Kate's and Anna's medical stints. An example of this was when he was ten, Kate fell ill and Sarah was not able to bring Jesse to the orthodontist and to get cleats that he needed to tryout for his schools soccer team. As a result of this Jesse got a fork from the kitchen and pulled his braces from his mouth, before announcing to his mother that now she wouldn't have to bring him anywhere. Throughout this book although it was Kate and Anna that had to stay in hospital most of the time, I always found myself sympathising with Jesse as well. Because of his parents distractions it isn't long before he begins to lose his way. As the book goes on we begin to realise that his parents have lost almost all faith in him. An example of this is when Sarah finds a bruise on his arm she immediately suspects drugs but in fact he has just given blood to the hospital because he feels that he isn't helping enough with Kate because he isn't a blood match. I very much enjoyed reading from Jesse's point of view as we see that he wasn't a bad person and just can't find a way to express his love for his sisters.
Imagery is very strong in this book. Throughout the novel Picoult describes Kate illnesses extremely well giving us an insight to a life of a young girl going through the difficult throws of Leukaemia. This was often times sad but made the story very believable. I really liked this because I wouldn't have that much knowledge of cancer symptoms and this made the story much more worth while for me. Imagery also helped us with the dynamics of hospitals. We saw how the doctors were always busy while the nurses were the ones that got to know the patients really well and often got very close to them.
There are many themes seen throughout this book. Just some of these were: illness, love, law, and death. The one the stood out the most to me was illness. The whole book focuses on Kate's cancer and her attempt to live with it. I was really interested in this theme and was not disappointed by the information in this story. Love was shown clearly as well because of how the family stuck together through all the hard times and whatever obsticles they faced.
This book is one of my all time favourites and I would recommend it to anyone. Even for people who have already seen the movie, the book is in my opinion not only better but also very different. One part of the book that really surprized me was the shock twist at the end, as I was not expecting it at all. The imagery was brilliant, the characters were well thought out and the themes and plots were well executed. I for one cannot find one thing that I didn't like about this book. This is a must read, so grap your copy, sit back and enjoy.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
EduBlogs :) Wuhooo..
Personally, I think Caitriona is awesome! Her blog is great! I would like to nominate her for the best student blog award EVER!
Here is her Work Experience Blog. Its Wonderful
http://tienies.blogspot.com/2011/11/neven-heaven.html?spref=tw
Here is her Work Experience Blog. Its Wonderful
http://tienies.blogspot.com/2011/11/neven-heaven.html?spref=tw
Sunday, 6 November 2011
'Juno and The Paycock' Review
On the 19th of October all Ty's were brought to see the play 'Juno and the Paycock' written by the Irish writer Sean O Casey, in the Abbey Theatre. It was a brilliant day and I think everyone enjoyed it.
When we were first showed to our seats there were a few people who were sceptical to see the play. I personally have to say that for me, to actually see the plays production really outshone reading it in class. It was a very different experience to see 'Juno and the Paycock' acted out live rather than just reading it. We had read the book previously to seeing it and I personally didn't actually like it. I found the way the play was written in the Dublin dialect to be very difficult to understand and because of this I found the characters to be completely unrelateable.
After viewing the play I was able to look on it from a very differennt perspective.
By the end of the play my favourite characyers were Mrs Boyle [Juno], Mary, Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. In the book Mrs Boyle and Mary are both main characters, but what surprized me were the very strong performances by the actors who portrayed the characters of Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. All the actors truly gave five star performances and made the whole play very realistic and believable.
As I found it difficult to understand what was happening in the book at times, going to see it live definantly brought the whole thing to life and the tricky Dublin dialect became easier to comprehend. All the actors delivered lines both strongly and clearly which really helped strenghthen the play.
Another great contributing factor of the play was the stage setting. The entire stage was done to resemble a room in one of the tenaments around the 1920s. This was made very realistic by the peeling wall paper to mismatched furniture in the family room to show the poverty in which the Boyle family were living. The lighting also made the performances believable as throughout the play the lighting was dim to help reflect the unhappiness and financial state in Ireland at that time. I especially liked the way when something upsetting occurred, you were made to believe that it was raining outside with sound affects and the lights diming even further so it seemed very dreary and sad. During the play I noticed something unusual that you dont normally get in a play. When Mr Boyle was smoking a pipe and when Mrs Boyle [Juno] was cooking sausages, the smells drifted into the audience and made the viewer actually believe that they were experiencing the drama first hand and not only watching in on stage.
In my opinion, Sean O Casey raised many themes in this play. The theme that I believe was shown most prominantly was war. This was clearly shown by the death of Ms Tancreds' son and later in the play by the death of Johnny, also by the ongoing sounds outside on the street which created the constant sounds of war and violence. This was a main issue during the play as well. We saw how traumatised Johnny was from the battle where he had lost his arm and we continued to see his depression and his paranoia throughout the play.
Another main theme that was clearly seen during the play was the economic state of dublin around the 1920s. This was shown by the families living in the tenaments and by the dirty and ragged clothes that they wore. O Casey showed the strain of the Boyle family by Mrs Boyle urging her husband to get a job and the way the family were forced to borrow money from the neighbours.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed seeing 'Juno and the Paycock' and I think Sean O Casey did a fantastic job in bringing the story to life with the very real issues and also the raw emotions of the characters [ mainly Mrs Boyle's speech after Johnny is killed]. Although I didnt enjoy reading the play in class, I would reccomend it to everyone, as I think that the Abbey Theatres production is a must see.
When we were first showed to our seats there were a few people who were sceptical to see the play. I personally have to say that for me, to actually see the plays production really outshone reading it in class. It was a very different experience to see 'Juno and the Paycock' acted out live rather than just reading it. We had read the book previously to seeing it and I personally didn't actually like it. I found the way the play was written in the Dublin dialect to be very difficult to understand and because of this I found the characters to be completely unrelateable.
After viewing the play I was able to look on it from a very differennt perspective.
By the end of the play my favourite characyers were Mrs Boyle [Juno], Mary, Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. In the book Mrs Boyle and Mary are both main characters, but what surprized me were the very strong performances by the actors who portrayed the characters of Johnny and Ms Masie Madigan. All the actors truly gave five star performances and made the whole play very realistic and believable.
As I found it difficult to understand what was happening in the book at times, going to see it live definantly brought the whole thing to life and the tricky Dublin dialect became easier to comprehend. All the actors delivered lines both strongly and clearly which really helped strenghthen the play.
Another great contributing factor of the play was the stage setting. The entire stage was done to resemble a room in one of the tenaments around the 1920s. This was made very realistic by the peeling wall paper to mismatched furniture in the family room to show the poverty in which the Boyle family were living. The lighting also made the performances believable as throughout the play the lighting was dim to help reflect the unhappiness and financial state in Ireland at that time. I especially liked the way when something upsetting occurred, you were made to believe that it was raining outside with sound affects and the lights diming even further so it seemed very dreary and sad. During the play I noticed something unusual that you dont normally get in a play. When Mr Boyle was smoking a pipe and when Mrs Boyle [Juno] was cooking sausages, the smells drifted into the audience and made the viewer actually believe that they were experiencing the drama first hand and not only watching in on stage.
In my opinion, Sean O Casey raised many themes in this play. The theme that I believe was shown most prominantly was war. This was clearly shown by the death of Ms Tancreds' son and later in the play by the death of Johnny, also by the ongoing sounds outside on the street which created the constant sounds of war and violence. This was a main issue during the play as well. We saw how traumatised Johnny was from the battle where he had lost his arm and we continued to see his depression and his paranoia throughout the play.
Another main theme that was clearly seen during the play was the economic state of dublin around the 1920s. This was shown by the families living in the tenaments and by the dirty and ragged clothes that they wore. O Casey showed the strain of the Boyle family by Mrs Boyle urging her husband to get a job and the way the family were forced to borrow money from the neighbours.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed seeing 'Juno and the Paycock' and I think Sean O Casey did a fantastic job in bringing the story to life with the very real issues and also the raw emotions of the characters [ mainly Mrs Boyle's speech after Johnny is killed]. Although I didnt enjoy reading the play in class, I would reccomend it to everyone, as I think that the Abbey Theatres production is a must see.
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