Hangle With Care pgs. 1-65

by: Jodi Picoult

Summary:
The book begins with a prolouge. Charlotte is talking about the day she went into labor.  Her water broke early and she wasn't prepared. When she got rushed to the hospital (curtisy of her best friend, Piper, and her husband), she went into an immediate C-section. Willow (her daughter) was born, but with a terrible disease. She has Osteogenesis Imperfecta, degenerative disease in which you have very brittle bones that can break with the simplest touch. Charlotte and her husband, Sean, had known that Willow would be born with this disease about 2 months before she was actually born. After Willow was born, she had her first break. A nurse did not handle her carefully enough and Willow broke her arm and ankle, and on her first night in the hospital she had to endure her first surgery. The prlouge ends with Charlotte signing a DNR saying that if Willow has another major problem she doesn't have to endure a crazy surgery.

Its five years later and Willow is now five years old.  Her older sister, Amelia, is 12 years old and is pretty bored with life. She is livivng in the shadows of a sister who needs help with literally everything she does. Amelia gets really excited when she hears that the family is going to Florida for a vacation. In all the craziness that has been going on to make sure that it was a safe trip for Willow, Amelia forgot to grab the papaer that described Willow's conditon just in case they had to go to the hospital (which, unfortunately, happens a lot). Well, Willow falls and breaks a lot of bones while in Florida. And at the hospital, the doctors arrest Charlotte and Sean for abuse and send Amelia to a foster home for the night. At the police station, Sean looses it when the police don't believe him.  Finally, they get let go and Amelia and Willow are returned to them.

Once back home, Sean goes looking for an attorny because he wants to sue the people in Florida for the way they were mistreated.  The lawyer, Rob Ramirez, and his assistant Marin ask Charlotte to describe Willow's condition and what exactly happened in Florida. After hearing this, Ramirez says that there may not be a case in what Sean is asking, but there may be one in the fact that if the nurse who did Charlotte's ultrasound had told her of Willow's condition sooner, they could have has the option of preventing the disease....

Response:
Oh my goodness....I love this book. It's not my typical romance novel, but it's still got lots of love in it, just in a different way :) I can tell already that this book is going to make me cry...I have only read one other Jodi Picoult novel, My sister's Keeper, and that one made be bawl my eyes out.  Jodi Picoult is good at doing this. I feel bad for this entire family, they have to gothrough so much pain and suffering, but you can tell that the bond between them is much stronger than the bonds created between most average families. I love love love this book!