Review: Handle with Care

Handle with Care, by Jodi Picoult. (New York: Atria Books, 2009)

Willow O'Keefe is a smart, funny five-year-old with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), or "brittle bone" disease. Her first fractures occur in utero, and the next breaks take place just after her birth. Handle with Care examines the extraordinary pressures on the family, especially on the mother, of a child who needs so much care.

Willow's mother, Charlotte, once a successful pastry chef, now cares for her young daughter full time. She becomes an effective, even aggressive, medical advocate for Willow during her frequent hospitalizations for broken bones. Her focus on Willow creates a distance between Charlotte and her policeman husband, Sean, and makes her adolescent daughter, Amelia, feel invisible.

Charlotte sets in motion a "wrongful birth" lawsuit, alleging that her obstetrician, who is also her best friend, did not give her the critical information she needed that would have given her the option to terminate her pregnancy. Charlotte believes that a substantial legal settlement is the only way for Willow to have a comfortable life, especially after her parents are gone.

Because of the lawsuit and the pressure it creates, Charlotte finds herself adrift and distant from all the people she loves -- her husband, her best friend, and her older daughter. Even her lawyer finds Charlotte's lawsuit distasteful. Nonetheless, Charlotte pushes on, firm in her belief that her choice is the only right one.

This book is brimful of issues. In addition to a child with OI and a wrongful birth lawsuit, Picoult throws in divorce, bulimia, cutting, shoplifting, Catholic pro-life beliefs, medical malpractice, and an adult adoptee searching for her birth mother. While there are enough themes going on here to supply several books, they don't really get in the way of getting this story told. Narration is accomplished through a variety of characters, all of whom address themselves to Willow.

This is the first Jodi Picoult novel I've read, although she's been recommended to me by my librarian friends for years. The book has strong characters, a compelling storyline, and plenty of surprises. I'll have to begin looking at Picoult's "also by" list for more titles to read.