My Sister's Keeper - Jesse

In My Sister's Keeper, the character Jesse was an arsonist. While for the most part Jesse seemed very irresponsible and purposely rebellious I definitely think deep down there was more to it. A huge irony was the fact that while Jesse was setting the fires, his own father was the one putting them out. At face value it seems that makes Jesse's behavior a cry for attention, but when you think about how extreme his behavior is you see there must be more to it. In the beginning when Anna describes Jesse's living arrangements as their parents just not wanting to deal with Jesse's constant misbehavior, seems like that must be a dream some true for an eighteen year old living at home, but his actions speak differently.
Being the older brother of the girl dying of cancer had to be hard. Being the sibling that didn't match blood or bone marrow types and couldn't save hi own sister had to harder. Not to mention the mother, Sarah, didn't help in the least. Instead of her child diagnoses making her a better mother, she just used it as an excuse to be selfish and to act emotionally younger than all her children. One of the flashbacks in the story consists of Sara randomly falling into a self consumed depression and decides she pities herself too much to take Jesse to the orthodontist or to get cleats, a perfect example of how Jesse quickly fell to the dark back round where his parents forgot him and the fact that he had needs too. Of course you can't blame Kate being sick for how Jesse became so neglected, but blame the parents, particularly Sara, for letting their other children slip so deep beneath the cracks. Jesse wasn't a bad kid, he was just put on the back burner all his life and after a while it had some undesired affects on him.