Handle with Care

I finished this novel quite a while ago, but I had forgotten to share it with you because I immediately loaned it out to my friend Sonja, who is one of my few fellow reading friends that actually lives here. So, we tend to share books back and forth. Actually, she's the one that introduced me to the lovely Twilight series, so kudos to her for picking good books. Anyway, she brought this book back to me on Sunday before our long run. (We did a killer hill, training for Doomsday hill, and the four of us that met at my house all managed to complete the killer 6 mile course I had lined up for us. Yay for us and we might (just might) be ready for that hill when it comes our way next month.) Once I had the book in hand agian, I realized that I hadn't blogged about it yet.

If you're familiar with Jodi Picoult's books, then you'll understand when I say that this is typical of her novels. Which, in my opinion, isn't a bad thing, its just, some people don't go for it. She takes a pretty serious situation, having a child with what is known as brittle bone disorder and writes from the perspective of the child's mom, father, sister and the child herself, exploring how that disease affects this particular family's life.  Picoult is so good at bringing the "what if" questions to life and making me think about what I would do if I had been in that situation.

I honestly don't know if I could handle having a child with any special needs or serious health conditions--both my girls are healthy and being their mom is tough enough sometimes. I have friends with kids that have various health issues and sometimes I just don't know how they do it. I truly believe that God will only give us what we can handle, and I think He knows I couldn't handle it. I have a lot of respect and high regard for mom's in those types of situations. I'm not saying my life is easy, its far from that--I have my own difficulties to handle, they just reside in different area's of life. So, reading this book made me grateful that I haven't been put in situations where decisions like the ones in the book would have to be made.

Picoult's characters are well written and realistic, and she throws in a little twist at the end that had me just irriated, but in a good way. I definitely was not expecting that. I liked this book, if thats the right word to describe it, and would recommend it. (Obviously, since I've already loaned it out once!)