Book vs. Movie: My Sister's Keeper

I read My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult the summer of 2006, which seems like a really long time ago. I read it for summer reading and absolutely loved it, so when the movie was released I really wanted to see it. If you don't know what it's about, the book and movie follows a young girl named Anna who was conceived to be a direct genetic match to her sister Kate who has leukemia. From the time she was born, Anna has been donating blood, platelets, bone marrow, etc to keep her sister alive. But now that Kate needs a kidney, Anna sues for medical emancipation and for the rights to her own body.

Review Without Spoilers

I thought My Sister's Keeper the Movie did a really nice job of following the book, for the most part. All the important things were kept in, the acting was good, the dialogue was nicely written. The only big difference is that the screenwriters completely changed the ending from the book. It is literally the total opposite, and it's interesting to see how far movies will stray from the books.

Review With Spoilers

I mainly do this section so I can provide specific details of changes from the book to movie, but I seperate it so people won't be spoiled. The big changes that I can remember is the movie got rid of a character named Julie, who is Anna's guardian ad litem and has a history with Campbell Alexander, Anna's lawyer. The book switches narration between a lot of the main characters, including Julie, but overall she didn't play that big of a role. Another thing that changed was the character of Taylor, who is Kate's boyfriend. He was in the book, but didn't have as big of a role in the movie. And now for the kicker: the most drastic change was the ending. Instead of Anna dying like in the book, Kate dies. I thought that Kate dying made more sense, but the ending of My Sister's Keeper was supposed to be ironic. The director/writers/whoever obviously thought that the irony would be lost on some people and decided to make it a sad cancer story instead. I don't really care either way, but like I stated before, it's interesting how much a book will change will when it's transformed into a movie.