My Sister's Keeper characters

Appears from the start

A thirteen-year-old girl who was conceived through genetic selection specifically to be a compatible donor for her critically ill older sister. For her whole life she has undergone procedures to give blood, marrow, and cells to keep her sister alive. As the story opens she takes an extraordinary step, hiring a lawyer to sue her parents for the legal right to make decisions about her own body and to refuse a further donation. Thoughtful and conflicted, she loves her sister deeply yet is desperate to be seen as a person in her own right rather than a supply of spare parts.

Appears from the start

Anna's older sister, who was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive leukemia as a small child and has been fighting it, on and off, ever since. Her illness has shaped every part of the family's life, and repeated relapses have kept her dependent on donations from Anna. Despite years of treatment and hospital stays, she tries to live as normal a teenage life as her disease allows.

Appears from the start

Anna and Kate's mother, a former attorney who gave up her career to devote herself entirely to keeping Kate alive. Fierce and single-minded in her fight against her daughter's cancer, she has organized the whole family around Kate's survival. When Anna files suit, Sara is stunned and chooses to defend the family in court herself, unable to accept a challenge to the choices she has made.

Appears from the start

Anna and Kate's father, a fire captain who finds calm in the certainties of his work and in the night sky he studies as an amateur astronomer. Gentler and more torn than his wife, he loves all his children and struggles to reconcile the family's need with Anna's plea to be heard.

Appears from the start

The eldest of the Fitzgerald children, a troubled and rebellious teenager who has largely fallen through the cracks of a household consumed by his sister's illness. Angry and self-destructive, he acts out and drifts, feeling useless in a family where he can do nothing to help.

Appears from the start

A slick, successful young lawyer whom Anna approaches to take her case. Sardonic and guarded, he deflects every question about the service dog that accompanies him everywhere with a different flippant excuse. He takes on Anna's unusual suit, and there is clearly some history between him and the guardian appointed to the case.

Appears from the start

The guardian ad litem appointed by the court to represent Anna's best interests independently of either parent or lawyer. Thoughtful and independent, she must get to know Anna and the family and form her own judgment about what the girl truly wants. She shares a complicated past with Anna's lawyer, Campbell.