Would you take the heart of the man who murdered your husband and daughter for your younger daughter, who is seriously ill and waiting for a transplant heart? If you do accept the heart, is it because you want to or because he wants to donate it? Shay is on death row waiting to be executed for a double murder, but when he hears that the daughter / sister of his victims needs a heart transplant he decides that he wants to donate his. This book covers his legal battle to change the method of his execution to enable his heart to be usable, and his battle to persuade the mother of the girl to accept his offer.
One thing picked up by the group is that after reading other books by Picoult it seems that she has a number of common elements that feature throughout her work. These include an ethical dilema, a close family facing a hugely life changing event, a medical problem and a legal battle. I myself found that many of the coincidences were just a little too far fetched, such as the idea that a grown man would have a heart the correct size to transplant into an eleven year old girl.
I don't know whether I believed in the aparent miracles performed by Shay but I could understand why people would be prepared to suspend their natural scepticism in the face of the miraculous, after all look at all the reported "faces of Jesus" found on slices of toast!
Some members of the group failed to finish the book, finding it not to be to their taste but I enjoyed it. Picoult's books always provide the reader with plenty of food for thought, good characterisation and in this case a good twist at the end - I really didn't guess this one!
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