The Ending of My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Today, on one of the discussion groups on Goodreads, I came across this question:
 

"Do you think its fair for Anna to die, or did Kate have to die? "

  

Basically, it's asking if it was fair for the character Anna to die in the movie, or should Kate's character should have died, or even neither. After answering, I thought I'd share my thoughts on this with you all, because this book had a huge impact on me.

BTW, if you haven't read the book this post contains SPOILERS! If you've seen the movie, I think you should be all right to continue reading, though it's different. The book has so many intricate aspects and even characters that were lost in the movie.

Tell me your thoughts! Here's what I posted.

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I think that Picoult's ending was written beautifully. Sure, many people would have expected someone to die. It is a bit cliche. But Picoult did switch it up. I know while reading, I expected Kate to die, not Anna. And honestly, Anna's death and the way it happened truly shocked me.

I became so absorbed with the characters that I felt heartbroken at the end. In fact, I put down the book and sobbed after finishing it. I laid down and thought through it, and yeah, I was completely angry.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I wished that Kate would have been the one to die.

But I got over it, and the emotions the book put me through caused me to write several essays on the book and on the topics in the book.

I learned a lot about leukemia, and I actually delved more into it, Googling the cancer.

All in all, I think that Kate's death would have been not cliche,but predictable, but Anna's, Anna's death was not. It was unexpected and tumultuous.

What would have been cliche would have been having none of the characters die, having Anna deciding to give up her kidney (which would have solved nothing in the end), having a donor surprisingly appear that matched Kate's. What would have been cliche is the happy ending. I know we all subconsciously ache for it, but this novel shows a harsh reality. Not everyone gets a happy ending, not every cancer patient goes into a permanent remission, not every car crash victim comes out alive, and not every person who dies does so at their time.

This book opened my eyes to the effectiveness of the not happily ever after, and it taught me comething I didn't know. I first read this book when I was 13, and I've read it several times over the 7 years that have past, and I can honestly say this book had a huge impact on me.