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Brad's Reviews > The Pact
The Pact
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***Not sure about spoilers here. I think I danced around things pretty well, but you may want reconsider your decision to read further in case I messed up.***
I am a bit disappointed. I was so close to loving this novel and its author, and I really did want to love them, but the denouement really let me down.
In the two books I've read now, Jodi Picoult sets out to deliver a big twist that will knock us on our asses. But she telegraphs the big twist in a way that removes any possibility of surprise. This could be seen as a bad thing, a failure on her part, but she does such a magnificent job of building our suspense in anticipation of that moment, that guessing the moment ahead of time is almost part of the fun. We know the shark's going to take the girl's leg off, the fun is in the expectation of when and how.
The Pact: A Love Story sets up a suicide pact between a pair of young lovers, but only one of them takes a bullet and the other ends up on trial for murder. From the outset we know that Emily's suicide is far more complex than Chris lets on, and the "truth" that we are destined to hear is fairly easy to guess, but the telling is compelling. Picoult prepares us for the big reveal by taking us through a decade of her main characters' lives, making us care for them, forcing us to empathize with them regardless of their actions. Picoult trusts that we will recognize their complex moral lives, the good and the bad in all of them, as something we all share whether we choose to believe it or not.
All of this makes the revelation at the heart of The Pact highly satisfying. By the time we discover what really happened on the night of the suicide, it has become impossible to judge those involved because we know too well what brought them to their actions. But therein lies the problem.
We are close to these people because we have read their thoughts. We know things about each of them that they choose to hide from the people in their lives, truths that are never revealed to anyone in the story. We have seen their lives through their eyes, so we understand their pain, their motivations, their choices as though we are them. But then Picoult allows her jury to make a decision that can only be made by someone reading her book -- not by a juror witnessing the most bizarre of all trials.
What Picoult asks us to believe is one ask too far. The result of the trial simply cannot be, and I felt sucker punched by the ending. I wanted something more akin to reality, I guess, and I would have loved Picoult for delivering. Instead, she gave me a Hollywood ending tacked on to a fine little piece of thought provocation, and I find myself continuing to withhold the love my mother so badly wanted me to feel for Picoult.
I like her, but somewhere along the line she's going to have to give me what I need for me to love her.
I am a bit disappointed. I was so close to loving this novel and its author, and I really did want to love them, but the denouement really let me down.
In the two books I've read now, Jodi Picoult sets out to deliver a big twist that will knock us on our asses. But she telegraphs the big twist in a way that removes any possibility of surprise. This could be seen as a bad thing, a failure on her part, but she does such a magnificent job of building our suspense in anticipation of that moment, that guessing the moment ahead of time is almost part of the fun. We know the shark's going to take the girl's leg off, the fun is in the expectation of when and how.
The Pact: A Love Story sets up a suicide pact between a pair of young lovers, but only one of them takes a bullet and the other ends up on trial for murder. From the outset we know that Emily's suicide is far more complex than Chris lets on, and the "truth" that we are destined to hear is fairly easy to guess, but the telling is compelling. Picoult prepares us for the big reveal by taking us through a decade of her main characters' lives, making us care for them, forcing us to empathize with them regardless of their actions. Picoult trusts that we will recognize their complex moral lives, the good and the bad in all of them, as something we all share whether we choose to believe it or not.
All of this makes the revelation at the heart of The Pact highly satisfying. By the time we discover what really happened on the night of the suicide, it has become impossible to judge those involved because we know too well what brought them to their actions. But therein lies the problem.
We are close to these people because we have read their thoughts. We know things about each of them that they choose to hide from the people in their lives, truths that are never revealed to anyone in the story. We have seen their lives through their eyes, so we understand their pain, their motivations, their choices as though we are them. But then Picoult allows her jury to make a decision that can only be made by someone reading her book -- not by a juror witnessing the most bizarre of all trials.
What Picoult asks us to believe is one ask too far. The result of the trial simply cannot be, and I felt sucker punched by the ending. I wanted something more akin to reality, I guess, and I would have loved Picoult for delivering. Instead, she gave me a Hollywood ending tacked on to a fine little piece of thought provocation, and I find myself continuing to withhold the love my mother so badly wanted me to feel for Picoult.
I like her, but somewhere along the line she's going to have to give me what I need for me to love her.
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Reading Progress
August 23, 2009
– Shelved
August 23, 2009
– Shelved as:
doing-the-dishes
August 23, 2009
–
3.91%
"Good start. I kept going after dishes and read while I was cutting ginger."
page
20
August 24, 2009
–
5.86%
"This will be a slow read because of how I do it, but I am, as usual, digging Picoult's characters. I am in love with Gus already."
page
30
September 2, 2009
– Shelved as:
mystery
Started Reading
September 3, 2009
–
Finished Reading
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Libby
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Aug 24, 2009 02:29PM
Like to know what you think of this one - it was up for a book club I was in but I skipped it because it seemed SO depressing. Let me know if you think it worth the read.
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This is an interesting review.I just finished Daniel Mendelsohn's book of essays, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, and one of his continual laments is that modern authors all too often set up a moving and authentic tragic situation only to cop out at the end and wrap things up like a Lifetime movie - sentimental, forgettable pablum.
I am going to have to read that. Off the cuff, I completely agree with Mendelsohn. Picoult certainly isn't the only one who does it, that's for sure.
Brilliant review, Brad. I've read three of her books (not this one though) and I find there's just something a bit too neat and, yes, Hollywood about them.
You have so many reviews I never know what to read, Shannon, but I am going to hunt down your Picoult reviews tonight. Thanks, too.
I think I only have one up, for The Twelfth Circle, which I didn't like as much as Salem's Falls and My Sister's Keeper. I wouldn't mind re-reading Salem's Falls actually.
Half way through the book. What bothers me how can they put a youn teenager in jail with all those convicts. Shouldn't he have gone to a juvenile facility
