Figurative Language for My Sister's Keeper

Metaphor-a figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity

• "The room is a sea of dirty clothes and magazines and leftover Chinese take-out cartons;…" (metaphor 14)
• "Is this coldhearted man the one who will lead us through this war, our general, our white knight?" (metaphor 60)
• "I imagine a great battle going on inside her." (metaphor 64)
• "I picture shining armies, casualties that evaporate through her pores." (metaphor 64)
• "He is talking about my little girl as if she were some kind of machine: a car with a faulty carburetor, a plane whose landing gear is stuck." (metaphor 66)

Simile-a figure of speech comparing two unlike things, often introduced with the words "like" or "as"

• "it smells like the sweaty tongue of a hockey skate." (simile 14)
• "From the kindhearted parking attendant who asks us it's our first time, to the legions of children with pink emesis basins tucked beneath their arms like teddy bears--these people have all been here before us, and there's a safety in numbers." (simile  59)
• "It comes out in a thick clump, drifts down to the carpet like a small blizzard." (simile 67)
• "Actually, that's not quite true--right now she doesn't have it, but it's hibernating under her skin like a bear, until it decides to roar again." (simile 10)
• "She picks the pan up with her bare hands, as if her skin is coated with asbestos." (simile 38)