Book Review: THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER, by Kim Edwards

The premise of this book is good: "a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver is own twins. His son, born first is perfectly healthy, but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down's syndrome. For motives he tells himself are good, he makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby away to an institution." I don't know what I expected, but that seemed initially promising, though it proved to wind itself out in a depressing tale with an obvious moral ("Lying is bad"), where the characters were so sneaky and self-absorbed that they were difficult to empathize with.

There were some interesting points about raising a child that the world views as damaged, as Caroline takes the daughter to another city and raises her as her own--some very telling episodes, as people responded to Caroline and her daughter, were fascinating, but those stood out as the highlights in what was otherwise a relatively bland book.

RATING: 2