The Pact: A Love Story
by Jodi Picoult
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Book Reviews of The Pact: A Love Story
Book Review: First Picoult...
Summary: 3 Stars
Someone recommended this book and I decided to give it a shot, although I did not know anything about the book. I was under the impression (maybe wrongfully so) that she wrote chick-lit. A couple pages into the book and I realized this was no chick-lit!! This is some serious stuff! But it really reeled me in - I did not want to put the book down.
I enjoyed the different viewpoints and even the non-chronological order the story was told. I felt the reactions of the parents in this awful circumstance was realistic. However, about 50% into the book, I felt the story dragging. I wanted more depth of Emily's character and her depression and her decision to commit suicide, but never got any of this. SPOILER START - As Chris's story unfolded, I got even more confused. He did not tell anyone about Emily? He brought the gun even though he wanted to stop her? He ultimately assisted, or actually killed, her?? The trial was a bit too dramatic and ultimately destroyed any sense of reality Picoult had created so well in the first half of the book. The verdict was outrageous - Chris changes story three times and confesses to at least assisting in shooting Emily (all this without the defense of "mental illness") but he is still found 100% not guilty. - SPOILER END
Because Picoult did such a great job with the first half of the book, I will try another book of hers. I just hope the next one I try will go more in depth for the main character and not have ridiculous endings. If so, then I prefer to read a true chick-lit - at least those stories are suppose to be silly!
Book Review: Painfully beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
Love, hate, betrayal and suspense; there are so many feelings that are entangled beautifully into The Pact, a novel written by Jodi Picoult.
Two families: The Hartes and the Golds, thought that nothing could tear them apart. Their children, Emily Gold and Christopher Harte, were "All-American kids" who'd grown up together since birth and were an inseparable couple since junior high. However, the families lives change on a November night when Emily Gold is pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the head, and Christopher Harte is now the prime suspect. What happened that cold November night will remain a mystery until the end. Did Christopher Harte mercilessly kill his beloved girlfriend, Emily Gold? Or was it a Pact made by two lovers that went terribly wrong?
As Emily's death is investigated, fault lines between parents and lovers begin to show. Just as depression and secrets are revealed, the ugliest truth emerges- Emily herself, was carrying the biggest secret of all. This novel will stay with you, even once you're done reading it.
Jodi Picoult is a genius! She has the power to take characters and turn them into people; people whom you feel you've known a lifetime. Funny, I never knew the extent of my own sadness until Jodi Picoult shined a flashlight on someone else's life-- a mirror image, I suppose. Perhaps that's what makes her a damn good writer- they way she takes characters who are mirror images of her readers.
This book isn't just about love and loss... it's about sooo much more.
Book Review: Ah... Contempory Fiction That Doesn't Suck
Summary: 5 Stars
Occasionally, I am amazed by my fellow reviewers. They tend to be articulate, educated, and extremely well read. They also tend to have intelligent, constructive things to say about even the best of books. Unfortunately, I am appalled by my fellow readers on this book.
To suggest that this novel was not worth the heart wrenching moments is to do an EXTREME disservice to it. Yes, it is difficult to read. When you pick up a book that is clearly about teen suicide, did you expect it to be a walk in the park?
That aside, I strongly recommend this book, if nothing else but to help you understand a growing population of teens in our world. Emily, the part of the pact that winds up dead, feels enormous pressure to be perfect and rebounds in an extreme way. This book gives grand insight into the way that teenagers, especially desperate teenagers, see the world. In addition, anyone who is reading with an ear for the truth, will learn an important lesson about parenting. Put too much pressure on your child, even in an obscure way, and it will backfire.
The plot is disturbing. I'm not arguing that. I am, however, saying that in any dark situation there is something to be learned. In my experience, the characters presented by Ms. Picoult are frighteningly real and also frighteningly possible. A walk in the park? No.
Worth it for the characters that you learn to love and the lessons that you hopefully will learn and take to heart?
Without a doubt.
Book Review: A great story that dwindled at the end -
Summary: 3 Stars
I really liked the formatting of this novel. Ms. Picoult flipped back and forth between the past and the present, telling the stories of Emily Gold, Christopher Harte and their respective families in the years leading up to and the months directly following a failed dual suicide attempt between the two kids. Since Chris was the survivor, speculations rose about whether or not Emily actually killed herself. Evidence was gathered that suggested foul play and Chris was put on trial for her murder.
The concept of this story was excellent. And the literary styling of changing times, then seamlessly overlapping past and present towards the end of the novel, when the reader is learning what really happened that night, is brilliant.
Sadly, what is not so brilliant is the final conclusion to the novel. It felt to me that this whole emotionally-charged experience just petered out once the final verdict was read. Unresolved conflicts between some of the minor characters were forgotten. And the underlying thought in my mind was that of waste.
I felt very gipped by the fact that I'd just invested so much time into reading this story - enjoying it for the majority of that time too - and then it just ENDED.
Of course, as I'm sitting here writing this I'm also thinking back on the story as a whole and I'm actually wondering if that feeling I had might have been the point?
Book Review: Maybe a Little too Close
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down", reading "The Pact: A Love Story" by Jodi Picoult put me on a suicide roll of sorts. A brilliant, beautiful and talented teenage girl dies violently in an apparent botched double suicide with the steady boyfriend she's know since almost birth. Ms. Picoult has a good ear for the voices and issues of young people. Her female adults (the mothers) are more sharply drawn than the males (maybe from personal experience), though she handles the crater that such an event would leave in the relationship between two close-knit families very well. She'll keep you guessing most of the way about what really happened that night, though I more or less figured it out before the big revelation. I liked the other book I read by her (she's written many) "The Tenth Circle", probably because of the literary angle (the title refers to Dante's circles of hell). Picoult fans, based on Amazon ratings, seem to like "The Pact" better. Still I'd recommend this book to those who enjoy stories about contemporary American families with children (Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys (Oprah's Book Club) being my favorite of this genre).