Willow O’Keefe is born with a disease which makes her bones brittle, and suffers countless breaks throughout her childhood. Her parents consider a ‘wrongful birth suit’, which makes the obstetrician who didn’t diagnose the condition early enough liable for not giving Charlotte the information early enough so that she could decide to terminate the pregnancy. With Willow’s medical expenses mounting, and Charlotte desperate to give her daughter the best care possible, this seems an attractive proposition – except her obstetrician was also her best friend, and the suit means saying that she’d have terminated her pregnancy had she known how disabled her daughter would be.

The ramifications of the suit are explored in a poignant way and the consequences and moral dilemmas explored – making this an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, and another of Picoult's very readable accounts of the impact a child's illness may have on parents and siblings. ( )

Willow is a five-year-old girl who suffers from OI, the disease where a person's bones can break just by sitting down. Charlotte and Sean are the parents of Willow and are at odds about whether or not to sue their obstretician, who is also Charlotte's best friend, under the wrongful birth theory. Picoult had a good starting point, but with cliched characters and with a writing style of "why use 5 words when you can use 50," things went downhill fast. Disappointing read. ( )

Once again, an intelligent novel undermined by the lasy chapter. Why does JP do this? ( )

In writing about a little girl born with brittle bone disease and all the medical and legal issues revolving around that, Jodi Picoult has not shied away from focusing on the most difficult issues, ones that are not easily understood or resolved. I thank her for that. However, this is definitely one of the worst-written Picoult books I have read. The editing or lack thereof is horrendous, almost embarrassing. Picoult acknowledges conferring with many medical personnel and conducting much research on this disease before writing the book, yet she got some very basic facts, ones any high school kid would know,entirely wrong. How could she confuse the names for the major arm bones with those of the leg, for example? Either she is writing these books too quickly or her editor was on sabbatical the year this was written.

My second major complaint with this book is the ending. Picoult loves to end her books with an unexpected yet dramatic twist but she missed the boat here. She contrived an ending that made absolutely no sense whatsoever and one that completely negated her entire theme. I was so angry, I sent her an email demanding an explanation. Her very prompt answer was no more satisfying than the book was. I am convinced even she did not understand what she had done and why.

Picoult had a similar unhappy twist in My Sister's Keeper but in that book, I could see how the ending tied into what she had written in the beginning of the book; it made sense even if I didn't like it and that is the mark of a good writer. I am hoping her next books are more carefully edited and more cohesive.

this story is very sad, a girl is born with a diesase that makes your bones brake easily.if you like sad relestic story its a good book for you! this book will make you cry and wish you could save that little girl frome her tragic fate ( )