Msk information

As:Anna
Release:2009
Official Site:here

All release dates:

UK: June 26th
USA: June 26th Argentina: July 9th
Australia: July 30th
Austria: August 28th
The Netherlands: August 27th


Content

Anna was conceived as a "harvest child" and genetically engineered, through in vitro fertilization, so that she would be a genetic match for her older sister Kate, who was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia when she was two years old. When Anna was born, her cord blood was donated to her sister, but when the leukemia returned she then had to donate blood and bone marrow. Kate's kidneys failed when she was sixteen and Anna was thirteen. Kate's only chance for survival is a kidney transplant. Because she would be a closer match than an unrelated donor and no other family member is a match, Anna is expected to donate one of her own kidneys to save her sister. Anna decides to hire a lawyer to become medically emancipated from her parents in order to gain the right to make the decision for herself. Her lawyer, Campbell Alexander, works for her pro bono. At the end of the book it is revealed that the reason Anna initiated the lawsuit was because her sister didn't want her to donate the kidney. Kate said she no longer wanted to go through life in a hospital and was ready to die. After the trial, Anna was granted medical emancipation with Campbell as her medical advisory. However, immediately after the trial, while Anna and Campbell are driving to the hospital, they are involved in a severe car accident, rendering Anna brain dead, while Campbell survives. Campbell makes the decision to donate Anna's kidney to her sister Kate after the doctors notify Anna's parents of her accidental death. The epilogue is narrated by Kate. She talks about her grief after Anna's death and how the death affected the people around her. She mentions how Brian, the girls' father, succumbed to and eventually recovered from alcoholism and how Jesse, their brother, becomes a police officer after a rebellious childhood. Following Anna's death the family had become close to Campbell and Julia, Anna's guardian ad litem for the trial, who had gotten married, until it became too painful. Kate, now free of cancer, talks about if she should ever forget her sister, she would look at her scars from the kidney transplant and imagine the stitches to resemble an 'A' for Anna, leaving a mark on her to remember her sister forever.