Following on from the success of My Sister’s Keeper, my friend (yes, the same friend. She has a rather morbid taste in books I’ll admit) started me, as well as the rest of our group of friends on more Jodi Picoult books. The next I was to receive was a book entitled “The Pact” about, yes you guessed it, a suicide pact.
I could start throwing around words like “deep”, “meaningful” and “heartbreaking”, but I’m not going to go down that road. The fact is that the book was downright depressing. And I mean depressing on a whole new level – I was expecting shockingly sad after My Sister’s Keeper, as well as thought-provoking, and yes, it was that too. Perhaps it was because I identified with some of the characters in the book (not the suicidal thing), or maybe it was the way it was written, but it was a difficult book to get through, and not really in a good way. I never cried outright, but once I’d got into it I had to stop for a while every other chapter, because I couldn’t cope with how it was portrayed.
Here’s the thing – every other chapter was titled “then” and “now”. The book begins with the successful suicide of one of the main characters, Emily, and the attempted suicide of another, Chris. Switching between the two – especially earlier on in the book when the “then” was absolutely idyllic, and the “now” was horrifyingly terrible was too much for me, I’ll admit.
The story follows two families, the Hartes and the Golds, who live next door to each other. Chris and Emily have known each other their whole life, and their childhood friendship turns into everything their parents want it to be – a perfect relationship. However when Chris and Emily are brought into hospital after what seems to be a suicide pact, both families are torn apart.
There are three main threads to the story: Chris and Emily’s relationship and their thoughts and reasons for the suicide pact; the relationships within and between the two families after the suicide; and the court case against Chris for the apparent murder of Emily.
I have to say that the first two, whilst being horribly depressing, are actually interesting. “Enjoy” would be the wrong word to use, but it was good to read the different reasonings behind the suicide pact, and how their lives and feelings had changed as time passed. The book is subtitled “A Love Story” and I suppose one of the truly saddest parts is towards the end when you realise that it truly is a love story, for one of the characters at least. It was worse (yet also good) reading how shockingly each of the families reacted, and how they changed – some becoming hostile, others in denial.
The only part which I did not really “like” was the whole court case – and this was a large part of the book. I felt Picoult had tried to develop the character of Chris’ lawyer to mean something and be relevant, but failed. It also felt as if all the terrible experiences Chris had whilst in jail were being written simply to make the book just that bit more depressing – which was unnecessary and didn’t add much to the storyline.
However, the one big disappointment for me was the ending. I was expecting a pretty good one from reading MSK, and this one just failed on all levels. Without going into detail, it was all going pretty (I thought) realistically, and with a good chance of a good and relatively optimistic ending. However then it all turned around – and in a way it felt like this ending was being written so that it would fit in with bringing the “then” chapters up to date… Chris was able to describe what actually happened on the night Emily died. Oh, that worked very well. However, the ending which I was hoping for seemed far too out of reach and unrealistic now that the scene had changed. And yet, somehow, it was kept in.
I suppose if the book wasn’t going to completely suck balls there was only one possible ending, otherwise the only message one could take away was “don’t let your suicidal girlfriend near a gun”. However, it just didn’t cut it for me. Sorry, but nowhere near as good as MSK, and a whole lot more depressing to boot.
Tags: book, jodi picoult, Review
Interesting. I have this on my to-read list and now I have a couple things to look for if I do read it. Sometimes I like to have that as I’m not good at picking out themes in books. Gotta love us math majors.
I haven’t read My Sister’s Keeper, but to be honest, this sounds more interesting. I’ll have to keep it in mind.
The Pact was the first Picoult book I read, and I’d still class it as one of my favourites. But I’m not sure if that would change now I’ve read more of hers and other authors’ books… I just remember being totally overwhelmed by this book in a good way, and being gripped the whole way through. I actually loved reading the court scenes more than the actual story, and that’s the same in the rest of her books. I liked how it was fast-paced and full of twists.
You preferred MSK? Everyone says that, but I kinda disagree. I know that MSK was much more optimistic, but there was something about it I just didn’t like. Must be that I prefer depressing books or something. x]
If you’re going to read more Picoult books, please go for Salem Falls or Second Glance next. They’re two of the best imo, and if you read Salem Falls before Nineteen Minutes, you’ll follow the Jordan McAfee story in the right order. Unless you don’t care, in which case you could get Nineteen Minutes next (the characters are kinda similar to those in The Pact, but the story’s totally different. Well, not totally different, but you’d probably prefer it to the suicide thing.)
Essay much?