Both books by Jodi PicoultMy Sister's Keeper recommended by Cheryl Fullmer
My Sister's Keeper was the first book by Jodi Picoult I have read. I inherited Handle with Care while in Mexico and it was the perfect read for our travels home (and into the wee hours of the next few nights). I review them together because the way Picoult writes you can't really tell someone what the story line is about, anything I would say would be wrong and give something crucial away at the same time. I almost want to say her stories are so tightly woven together that you can't just extract a fiber out and expect to give an adequate visual of the entire blanket. But woven is not the right word.
Picoult's stories come at the reader like a brutal and beautiful song moving around you, the reader. Each instrument has a different point of view and yet they are all coming together as a whole. The characters dance around each other, in the most painful ways sometimes, and yet through this movement the story is formed and somewhere within it a question is pushed into the front of the song. And the question shifts your perception of the song, the instruments and yourself, now a participant in the piece.
These books are compelling, hard to put down and thought provoking. They are challenging, painful, excruciating at times, and yet so easy to see your own reflection in them. They are about families. And broken humans. They sock you in the gut while leaving you turning around your own beliefs in your head for days.
Book 54 and 55
I actually really enjoyed the book (even with the rather clunky writing and unsubtle characterizations), and then the ending comes and I start screaming "What? You've gotta be kidding me!" It betrayed the entire premise of the book. It betrayed the characters. It certainly betrayed the reader. I will never read another book by this purveyor of pulp, and I refuse to go see the movie unless I am assured beforehand that they have re-written the ending so it makes sense with the rest of the story.
ReplyDelete