Jodi Picoult

Filed under: Books — purplehsiaoling at 8:09 am on Wednesday, September 12, 2007

     I’ve just finished reading my fourth Jodi Picoult book and here I am, pretty much compelled to write something about her books.  So, I’ve read Plain Truth, Picture Perfect, Second Glance and Vanishing Acts (in this order) and all in this year.  That’s 4 books out of the 14 that’ve been published.

     Well, her books have been heavily promoted in major local bookstores and after passing them over a few times, I finally bought Plain Truth and gosh, was I blown over by it!  It is one of those books, which actually kept you going page by page.  The same actually goes for all her books!  And that’s one of the "downside" of her books. 

     I just have to finish it all at once or, at most, in a day or two because the story will haunt my every waking hour if I do not know the ending.  So, let’s see..  Plain Truth and Picture Perfect were read during working days and I remembered stolen time to read before work began, during lunch and after work.  As for Second Glance, I stayed up all night to finish it and I took a whole afternoon to read Vanishing Acts. 

     So, there you have it.  Her books are highly engaging.  And emotionally draining too, I’d think.  I feel for her characters, both major and minor ones.  They are very much alive with all their flaws and goodness and everything else.  When you feel for them, you actually want them to turn out all right and thus, the race to the end to know what happened to them.  Like what Delia Hopkins in Vanishing Acts said, "I want to know how it ends."

     Worse thing is I really must have happy endings for the books I read and movies I watch.  (Okay, I have more or less come to terms with being cheated out of one with Titanic and Cold Mountain.)  With Jodi Picoult, you are never really sure.  Sometimes the story ends the way you want, sometimes it doesn’t.  Hmm..  Maybe that’s why chic lits are good.  Happy endings guaranteed.  Be forewarned: Spoilers ahead.

     In the four books that I have read, the record for happy endings stands at 50:50.  Now, let’s dissect them one by one.  Everything turned out bee-you-tee-fully in Plain Truth.  Both heroines (Ellie and Katie) ended up with men whom they deserve.  Katie, who was on trial for murdering her newborn baby, got a "good" sentence and everything turned out o.k.a.y.  Did I mention that it’s full of courtroom drama?

     I love courtroom drama, looking back at the days when I really enjoyed Law & Order and those earlier John Grisham books.  So, it was really a pleasant surprise to get some courtroom action in Plain Truth.  The same goes for Vanishing Acts.

     The second book, Picture Perfect, would have been perfect except for the twist in the tale in the last few pages in the book.  Aaargh..  I still remembered the disappointment so well and for that, whenever, I read the book I again, I deliberately leave out the ending and was contented to read until the part when Alex reunited with Cassie and his new son, Connor.

     Okay, so..  Alex had a problem, a huge one actually, because he hit his wife.  He was going to get professional help when his wife came back to him with their son.  And I wanted so much to believe that he could and would change but in the end, he lost his temper again and Cassie finally divorced him.  Plus she ended up with Will Flying Horse, who was her saviour of some sort (something I can’t fathom why).

     A leopard doesn’t change its spots.  Perhaps there’s a basis for that but I want my happy ending!  It’d have been perfect if the story went like this:  Alex had been so consumed with guilt and regret and remorse when Cassie first left him that he would change.  The three of them would stay together as a family, who had everything going for them..  If only he could control his anger and stop hitting her.

     Everything would have been so perfect..  But then again, perhaps everything’s only picture perfect but is actually anything but..

     On to the next book: Second Glance.  It deals with the dead coming back to the living and all.  I like the way Shelby and Eli (not the main characters) got together but other than that, I didn’t really like anything else.  For starters, I blame Lia, one of the central characters, for everything bad that happened.  If she was not to blame, then perhaps her mother, like what she herself said in the book.

     Plus Ross, the other central character, actually fell in love with a ghost (Lia, of all people) and was willing to forsake the living for her.  At the beginning of the book, I admire his faithfulness towards his dead fiancee but after he bumped into Lia while he was ghost-hunting, I really couldn’t believe how he fell for her just like that.  So, it’s pretty hard to like a book when you don’t like the main characters and that’s that.

     And now, Vanishing Acts!  Ahh..  My favourite book besides Plain Truth.  A story about how a father kidnapped his daughter and built a new life for the two of them to get away from his ex-wife’s new husband, who was really an animal in disguise.  Suffice to say the father was acquitted because anyone would have done what he did for his daughter and for that, I am happy.  If not, it’d have been Picture Perfect all over again.

     And there was a lovely story about three best friends: Delia (the daughter), Eric and Fitz.  As they were growing up, Delia went out with Fitz first before he foolishly sent her to Eric.  Delia and Eric had a daughter and were engaged to marry when her father was caught for kidnapping her after 28 years.

     Now, Fitz had been in love with Delia all his life but he always thought that Delia and Eric belonged together.  He even helped Eric get her with a dollar note folded into a heart that hid a message, "If all I could ever have is you, I’d be a billionaire."  Aww..

     So, why didn’t Delia and Eric get married before their daughter, Sophie, came along?  Sophie was so darn cute and she even told Fitz that he loved her mother!  Back to the question, Eric was an alcoholic (Delia’s mother was one, too).  Throughout the book, he was trying hard to quit but in the end he lost it.  So much like Alex in Picture Perfect and for that I am sad.

     But I am cheered when this is what Delia thought after getting together with Fitz:  What if last night wasn’t wrong… but finally, remarkably, right?  So, I gather that all along, it was she and Fitz who were meant to be together and I guess, Eric just got in the way.  Frankly, I wouldn’t have minded if she still married Eric for Sophie’s sake but Fitz was one great guy!

     The question remains: Dare I read more Jodi Picoult books?  Currently, there’re ten more to go.  Reading her book is always an emotional rollercoaster ride- you go up and down and you want it to end quickly but for what they’re worth, it’s one heck of a ride.  I’ve been debating if Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite writers and with the fact that I’ve read four of her books, I guess she is..