Picture Perfect

I am a huge Picoult fan, and when I bought this book it actually made it's way through three friends before I got to read it myself. I did not like this book at all. It's an important topic, yes, but it's been done, and in not much different stlye then say, Sleeping with the Enemy, minus the killing, add in the Hollywood scene. It was frightfully long, and I just kept thinking, okay Jodi we get the point he's abusive, he's a tortured soul...don't torture me for it. She could have cut about 100 pages from the book, truly. There was a lot of filler, and unimportant events, and then too many beatings....we get the point already.
However, I give Picoult credit for her understanding of a situation a lot of women are in, staying with an abuser, blaming themselves. Picoult is a MASTER at building her characters, and while I didn't appreciate the story much, or find it new, or in intriguing, her characters ALWAYS are.

This addresses the battered woman syndrome explaining why some continue to stay in these relationships.

I have read every one of Jodi's books except MERCY. I enjoyed all of her books except this one and Songs of the Humpback Whale. Both of these were her earliest novels, and her writing and stories have come a long way over the years.

This book is confusing & disappointing. The central character, Cassie, is amnesic, yet she does remember some things. It is never clear how the amnesia occurred or how she comes to recover from it. I felt that there was far too much going on in the story: Hollywood life, Indian Mythology, anthropology and then add to that the domestic violence theme. The story goes back and forth between the present, the past, the memories, and leaves readers (at least me) lost in the middle.

Jodi Picoult has written a page turner that has you on the edge of your seat. I felt a range of emotion while reading the book. I couldn't put this book down and read it in record time. Great book!!

Officer William Flying Horse is new to the Los Angeles Police Department. The job is quite a bit different from his last place of employment, the Indian reservation on which he grew up. As the child of a white mother and Native American father, Will has always had problems fitting in, the white kid on the reservation, the Indian guy to the rest of the world. The night before he starts his new employment, he discovers an amnesiac woman wandering the streets. The two bond immediately, as Will waits with Jane Doe until someone comes forward to claim her - a husband she can't remember, but who ensures her of the fairy tale life they have together. As you might imagine, however, fairy tales are not often as perfect as they seem.

Quote: "Jane closed her eyes and tried to conjure a face, a gesture, even the pitch of a voice. She shook her head. 'I don't feel married.'"

I am overall a Jodi Picoult fan, but I have not been impressed by the last couple of hers books I read. The plot twists seemed too obvious, the back-and-forth between characters too stilted. This book reminded me of why I enjoy her work so much. She looks into complex situations, complicated characters, and makes all of them understandable and relatable, the "good" ones and the "bad" ones. A great reminder of all things good about Jodi Picoult.