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Pictures of You

by Caroline Leavitt (Goodreads Author)

3.4 of 5 stars 3.40 · rating details · 3,828 ratings · 660 reviews

Two women running away from their marriages collide on a foggy highway, killing one of them. The survivor is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life, but also must go back and deal with the devastated husband and fragile, asthmatic son the other woman left behind. Together, they try to solve the mystery of where April was running to, and why. By turns riveting...more

335 pages

Published 2011 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (first published December 29th 2010)

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Jul 07, 2010 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is a very foggy day as April and Isabelle, unknown to each other, leave their homes on Cape Cod. Three hours later, the fog is worse. April, standing outside her car, suddenly looms up before Isabelle. Isabelle cannot stop or turn her car in time to avoid a horrible accident which kills April. This compelling story follows Isabelle, Charlie, April’s husband, and Sam, April’s 9 year-old son, as their lives become intertwined while they deal with the aftermath of that accident. I couldn’t put i...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Eileen Granfors rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: families, local-color, women, new-classic

"Pictures of You" flies between emotions like the wind rushing over the sea grass on Cape Cod. The book begins with a hornet in a car, with Isabelle driving into a foggy landscape. What an opening. The reader knows this can't be good, and by the end of the first chapter disaster strikes.

In the chapters that follow, the story finds moments that are still and calm, soothing, a lovely moment between a man and a woman, between a parent and child. Then things stir up through a character's slight word...more "Pictures of You" flies between emotions like the wind rushing over the sea grass on Cape Cod. The book begins with a hornet in a car, with Isabelle driving into a foggy landscape. What an opening. The reader knows this can't be good, and by the end of the first chapter disaster strikes.

In the chapters that follow, the story finds moments that are still and calm, soothing, a lovely moment between a man and a woman, between a parent and child. Then things stir up through a character's slight word, or edge in a voice, or an action misinterpreted, and the reader is entangled in a web of characters, each one with something lovely about him/her, all with a problem to resolve.

The plot begins with two women, each running towards a new life. Their new lives collide, and the mystery for us, as readers, is why did each feel so impelled to leave? Isabelle's reason comes first, and the book belongs to her in the opening pages. Then we get to know April, Sam, Charlie, and Luke. We wonder most about the mysterious April.

Sam is a beautiful boy, with the imagination and charm and wit, to carry the story, but his is only a part of the picture. His fundamental misunderstanding of the adults around him brings much of the heartbreak into the book.

The "pictures" of the title are literal as well as metaphorical, with the lens of the camera giving Isabelle and Sam an element of commonality.

Caroline Leavitt writes with power about powerful emotions. She weaves in magical details, the library books Sam picks, the butterfly clasp on the psychiatrist's sweater, until the reader becomes a part of the literary dream she has created.

When I read Leavitt, I start with the idea that I'm going to assess her craft, understand her methods. Before long, I am much too caught up in the story to look at sentence length or diction. I'm simply in love with a book.

If the rating system allowed more stars, I would use them. I'll be surprised if this is not my #1 book of 2011. That's a little scary. But I can always read it again. And again.(less)

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Sep 04, 2011 Barbara Sissel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lovers of contemporary fiction, suspense and mystery with a touch of the angelic

Mental anxiety can create a kind of fog and as with the real thing, you can make up almost any sort of reality from it. You can create any kind of illusion. See a thing that isn’t there or not see a thing that is. Drive yourself insane. Drive yourself straight into a horrible, head-on collision with someone else, another woman, who is in the same state of panic as you, someone who is running as hard and fast as you. This is the scenario that Caroline Leavitt begins with in her latest novel, Pict...more Mental anxiety can create a kind of fog and as with the real thing, you can make up almost any sort of reality from it. You can create any kind of illusion. See a thing that isn’t there or not see a thing that is. Drive yourself insane. Drive yourself straight into a horrible, head-on collision with someone else, another woman, who is in the same state of panic as you, someone who is running as hard and fast as you. This is the scenario that Caroline Leavitt begins with in her latest novel, Pictures of You . And when the horrible wrenching sounds of the accident have fallen silent, only one woman is still alive. One woman, Isabelle, and one child, nine-year-old Sam. April, Sam’s mother, is dead. Isabelle is inconsolable. She remembers driving through the fog; she remembers seeing April’s car--stopped dead in the center of the road. Wasn’t that how it happened? The police agree. There was nothing Isabelle could have done. No one knows why April stopped. Sam swears he doesn’t know. The single consolation for Isabelle and for April’s husband, Charlie, is that Sam survived with little injury. But if he knows why his mother acted as she did, he isn’t telling, not yet. An even greater mystery, though, is what April was doing on that road in the first place. Three hours from home with a packed suitcase. She was leaving, obviously, but why? Charlie is desperate to know and even more desperate to protect Sam who is delicate, afflicted with acute asthma, and yet so brave, so determined to survive, to be well.

Sam is desperate too, to talk to his mother just once more and Isabelle is desperate to make it up to both Charlie and Sam, but how can she? It is from all this desperation that the most inexplicable of relationships develops between the three survivors each one of whom is in such dire straits, in such need of understanding and forgiveness and healing. When Sam, either by accident or design, finds books in the library about the possibility that angels might be counted on to arrange the meeting with his mother he so longs for, when he mixes up in his mind, Isabelle’s presence at the scene of the accident with that of an angelic visitation, the search for the truth of what happened and why on that foggy stretch of rural country road takes on elements of magical realism that are a child’s natural ground. I loved how this thread was woven into a story that is as much a tale of mystery and suspense as it is an exploration of the nature of human relationships and the often questionable road to forgiveness both of one’s self and of others. Is it possible? Is the job ever finished? And the nature of love is explored as well, its sometimes incongruous appearance in the most unlikely of circumstances, but somehow it lights as gently as a whisper in exactly the place where it is most needed.

Using language that simply unspools in the loveliest, most effortless fashion, Caroline Leavitt has created a cast of characters who are warm and relatable and a story that is as charming as it is, at times, heartbreaking. The ending is not what you might expect and even now, although I wish it might have been otherwise, I know it was exactly right.
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Jan 07, 2011 Erika Robuck rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book begins on a foggy road, south of Cape Cod. A photographer, Isabelle, is fleeing her life after finding out about her husband’s affair, but her escape is literally stopped by a car parked across the highway. Unable to see the car and the woman, April, standing in front of it until it’s too late, Isabelle hits the woman and her life is forever changed.

The tragedy ends up bringing Isabelle back to the very town she’s fleeing. As the novel unfolds she develops a relationship with April’s so...more

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May 14, 2013 Candace rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: women-by-or-about, fiction

This review is loaded with spoilers. So if you haven't read the book yet, please do not read on.
***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***

This is one of those books that makes me feel that, even though I had heterosexual parents and a heterosexual family and grew up in a heterosexual world, I will _never_ understand heterosexuals.

The writing in the book is fine. It's the premise, the plotting, and how it all works out that I find problematic.

They say that the majority o...more This review is loaded with spoilers. So if you haven't read the book yet, please do not read on.
***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***SPOILER ALERT***

This is one of those books that makes me feel that, even though I had heterosexual parents and a heterosexual family and grew up in a heterosexual world, I will _never_ understand heterosexuals.

The writing in the book is fine. It's the premise, the plotting, and how it all works out that I find problematic.

They say that the majority of car accidents happen within 25 miles of home. But this book is about two families in the same Cape Code town in which the female partners, independently decided to pack up and take off and travel about three hours -- almost to Hartford -- on the exact same day only to have a major accident facilitated by fog in which one woman lived and the other died. It would be more believable if each woman had travelled, say, _three_ miles before colliding with one another. But no, for some mysterious reason, the collision's improbability had to be cranked to the max.

Now, what could be more improbable than that? How about if the surviving woman became intimately involved with the husband and now-motherless son of the deceased woman's family? Like _that_ happens every day.

We are now somewhere in the win-a-nationwide-lottery realm of improbability, but alas, the surviving woman's affair with the husband of the deceased woman doesn't pan out because, as the author points out, this isn't a Hollywood movie. Huh? WTF? Why the hell not? We are so far into the realm of wishful thinking that it seemed reasonable to me for the childless woman to have a ready-made family fall into her lap.

There seemed to me, too, a bunch of loose ends that never got tied up, but I didn't care much because the entire premise and plot seemed so Byzantine and odd.

And after wading through this plotting morass, I am confronted by a discussion guide, as if I would want to sit around someone's living room and discuss the finer points of this novel.

I'm sure that Leavitt can do better than this. She's obviously talented, but this book makes about as much sense to me as Holly Hunter singing her way though a black neighborhood at night at the end of "Living Out Loud." If you loved that movie, you'll probably love this book. And if you do, could you please explain it to me?(less)

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Dec 27, 2011 Larry Hoffer rated it 5 of 5 stars

One foggy day, about three hours from Cape Cod, two women's cars collide on the road. Both appear to be running away from their marriages. April dies in the crash, while Isabelle survives, and is left not only to pick up the pieces of her life in the town she had wanted to escape, but becomes entangled with April's devastated husband, Charlie, and their young son, Sam, who is riddled with guilt about the accident. Charlie can't understand why April wanted to leave, and what she was doing on that...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Melissa Crytzer Fry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow! I think this may be the best word to sum up this wonderfully emotional story of individuals brought together by the darkest tragedy. Caroline Leavitt is the master of “show don’t tell,” weaving a tale of secrecy, regret, and ultimately one of acceptance for the paths life chooses FOR us. It’s a story of love and all its complexity: between child and mother, between husband and wife, between man and woman.

But it’s much, much more than that. The multiple points of view between characters ser...more

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May 14, 2011 Shonda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

April. Charlie and Sam. Isabelle. Four lives that intersect as a result of a decision to escape one's life.

Pictures of You begins with Isabelle fleeing her marriage after she discovers her husband is having an affair. Luke is not the man her mother wants her to be with when she began dating him as a teenager. Instead of listening to her mother's warnings, Isabelle runs off with Luke and later marries him.

April is not the typical "girl-next-door" type. Which is why Charlie fell in love with her t...more April. Charlie and Sam. Isabelle. Four lives that intersect as a result of a decision to escape one's life.

Pictures of You begins with Isabelle fleeing her marriage after she discovers her husband is having an affair. Luke is not the man her mother wants her to be with when she began dating him as a teenager. Instead of listening to her mother's warnings, Isabelle runs off with Luke and later marries him.

April is not the typical "girl-next-door" type. Which is why Charlie fell in love with her the moment he first saw her. The pair eventually marry and have one son, Sam. Sam suffers from asthma and finds himself always under his parents' cautious watch. Some may think April's parenting style is unconventional, but it's obvious she adores Sam.

That same fateful day Isabelle decides to leave her husband, April is also escaping her life. The two collide on a foggy day leaving April dead, Charlie and Sam grieving over her death and Isabelle feeling responsible for killing her. Weighed down with remorse, Isabelle seeks out Charlie and Sam. She wants to tell them how sorry she is for what has happened and asks for Charlie's forgiveness. Instead she finds herself drawn to Sam and begins a relationship with Charlie.

Pictures of You provides an inside look on how grief affects the living. For Charlie, he now is forced to raise Sam alone and to honestly look at his marriage and the woman he fell in love with. How well do we really know our spouse? Charlie is left with many unanswered questions surrounding April's death.

Isabelle initially isolates after the accident. When she starts picking up the pieces to move forward, she is given a second chance. Will she take advantage of this opportunity despite what has happened? Or will she wallow in self-guilt about the accident and the end of her marriage that she remains permanently stuck?

And Sam. How does a young boy grow up without his mother? April was different than the others moms. She took him out of school so the two of them could have an adventure. How will he adjust to Isabelle's and Charlie's relationship?

Pictures of You is by no means a light, quick read. Leavitt created characters so complex that I found myself slowing down to take in the story. I admit I was against Isabelle's and Charlie's relationship from the start. Leavitt's style of writing vividly painted the raw pain and deep loss both felt after the accident, that it was almost as though they were drawn to each other as two magnets. Yes, I understood their immediate attraction for each other, however I did not want to see them as a couple.

April is the link that ties Charlie, Sam and Isabelle together. Unfortunately the reader does not hear April's story in her own voice. Instead the reader learns about April through memories and other people's perceptions. From this, I found it difficult to like April and easy to judge her. I wish I could have read April's story in her voice, especially the events that led her to leave Charlie.

Despite my reservations with Charlie's relationship with Isabelle and not hearing April's voice, I still highly recommend Pictures of You. Leavitt will keep you up long into the night as you find yourself being pulled into the story.(less)

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May 07, 2011 Heather Mize rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was pretty good, but there were several things that I found distracting, and that really frustrate me in a book.
Beware of possible spoilers below:

Sequencing of events, and logistics wasn't always correct. At the end of the book Sam and Lisa meet when he's 25. They would have been too young to have been practicing on their own. There are probably a dozen or so issues like this in the book.

The book portrays April as an almost overbearing mother, she's so attentive. Other times when con...more This book was pretty good, but there were several things that I found distracting, and that really frustrate me in a book.
Beware of possible spoilers below:

Sequencing of events, and logistics wasn't always correct. At the end of the book Sam and Lisa meet when he's 25. They would have been too young to have been practicing on their own. There are probably a dozen or so issues like this in the book.

The book portrays April as an almost overbearing mother, she's so attentive. Other times when convenient for the story Charlie remembers her a different way. In the book it refers to Charlie not being able to cook, but then later Sam is looking back and refers to him baking loaves if bread. There were SO many examples of this that it annoyed me. To me, that's simply editing issues.

The story gets a little convuluted, and it seems to be lacking some serious issues that would have come up between Charlie and Isabelle. Isabelle becomes very co-dependent, and their reactions to their first time together seem implausible. Isabelle loves Sam, yet she does become needy, obsessive, and utterly selfish when asking them to move. She is very forceful. But once her relationship with Charlie develops it's as if the story line of her own guilt and role in April's death is diminished.
There were a lot of loose threads. Not exactly questions unanswered, but just things that didn't make sense. It lacked in some ways, and had to much included in more ways.

Luke seems easily to let go of Isabelle easily after ramming himself down her throat. There's missing dialogue sometimes- she never asks Luke to explain his infidelity, etc. The book doesn't explore the first holidays of Charlie and Sam w/o April. It glides past important things. The detective who was only hired for 1 month is still working with Charlie months later. No closure to Teddy and his abuse. Why did Isabelle sleep with Charlie when she was pregnant? It seemed a little hypocritcal after Charlie just having told her of his his conversation with Bill, and her own past with Luke. It didn't add any value to the characters. It made me like them less. Why did Leavitt even include Charlie overhearing his dad on the phone saying Darling to a woman? It didn't add to the story and was never mentioned again.

Why would April leave Sam when she's portayed as overbearing and overly attentive?

Again, just some things that to me seem implausible. There's a lot of rear view mirror scenes, and cliches. A lot of happenstance and convienience- lots of running into each other.

Last but not least the characters were not very diverse. Charlie, April, and Isabelle's parents almost all have the same relationship dynamics (though Isabelle's dad is dead and Aprils are now too.) However, even this is sketchy. Charlie refers early on to a tense household and his parents fighting. Then later her refers to them as being so wound in each other that he felt like an outsider. Then later her refers to their relationship as chilling again.

It really isn't a bad story I just get super annoyed with so many inconsistencies, as well as I feel like Leavitt struggled with an ending she felt good with and the story spiraled a little at the end.

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May 01, 2011 Denise rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pictures of You is a novel of accidents, coincidences, and mystery. The lives of Isabelle and April collide one foggy afternoon on a lonely country road. April is killed leaving a bewildered husband and son to try to understand why she was on that lonely road and where she was going. Isabelle, drowning in grief over the accident and the rest of her destroyed life, can't leave April's husband and son alone, becoming more and more involved in the mystery of April's motivations. This chance relatio...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Jmm rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: family-drama, cape-cod, psychological-drama

April and Isabelle--two unhappy wives who have never met. April, a homemaker with an 8-year-old severely asthmatic son, feels trapped by her circumstances; Isabelle, a childless photographer who married too young, has just discovered her husband is seeing another woman who is pregnant with his child. By pure chance, these two strangers from the same town become linked forever when Isabelle's car strikes and kills April on a foggy road in Connecticut on the day both women separately chose to leav...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-fiction

Thirty-six-year-old Isabelle is leaving Cape Cod, her husband Luke, has a baby with his new girlfriend. All Isabelle is leaving with is: her cameras, one small suitcase of clothing, and money from the bank. She is heading for New York where she has a cheap, illegal sublet lined up that she can use for as long as she wants and she has her photography business. Driving westbound on US-6 the fog is thick making it impossible to see with headlights so Isabelle turns on her parking lights which provi...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading, Pictures of You. There are a few critiques, but overall I did enjoy reading this.

It is about two women who's make a life changing decision, that will affect the people they care about the most. Isabelle is married to Luke. She is not happy and decides she wants to leave Cape Cod, and go to NYC. Then there is April, she is married with a young son, Sam. She doesn't realize that Sam is in back of the car.

We wonder is she just taking a drive, or is she running away? Then on a fog...more

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Mar 16, 2011 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had to read this book through tears most of the time. It is so moving, and the characters are so real. I loved how much Charlie adored his wife, and how dedicated he was to his son Sam, even though his grief threatened to engulf him.
The writing is sublime. After April's death, when Charlie is asked about the organ donor card found in his wife's wallet, he thinks, "someone else would touch April's skin. Someone else would see through her eyes." Those lines just killed me, and told you all you...more I had to read this book through tears most of the time. It is so moving, and the characters are so real. I loved how much Charlie adored his wife, and how dedicated he was to his son Sam, even though his grief threatened to engulf him.
The writing is sublime. After April's death, when Charlie is asked about the organ donor card found in his wife's wallet, he thinks, "someone else would touch April's skin. Someone else would see through her eyes." Those lines just killed me, and told you all you needed to know about Charlie's love for April.

Another line that got me was the author's description of Luke's attraction to the much younger Isabelle. "When he smiled at Isabelle, his eyes were full of light. He looked at her like she was the most interesting thing he had ever seen." You understand why Isabelle became so smitten with Luke; what woman wouldn't want a man to look at her like that?

Leavitt uses imagery beautifully in this novel. When Isabelle realizes too late that Luke has been cheating on her, she recalls how he had been nice to her after she found earrings the house that weren't hers or smelled perfume, "how he'd taken her out to a fancy dinner, how he reeled her back in so tenderly that she didn't notice the sharpness of the hook." You can just see Isabelle as the poor fish hooked on Luke's line.

Photography plays a big part in the book. Isabelle is a photographer and she teaches Sam how to take photos. It bonds them together, and becomes the one thing that helps Sam overcome his grief and guilt over his mother's death. She tells Sam that photographs sometimes shows things that aren't there, things that you have to look deeper for the hidden meaning. Much of this lovely novel is people realizing they really don't know the ones they love most.

I so enjoy when the ending of a book surprises me, and Leavitt does a brilliant job with the resolution of the story. It takes you to unexpected, but satisfactory, places. She jumps forward in time, and lets the reader know how these characters have fared, but leaves enough questions lingering that allows these wonderful characters to live ons. I will not forget Charlie, Isabelle and Sam, and will think of them fondly for a very long time.

Pictures of You is a moving, heartbreaking novel about the power of healing and forgiveness, with interesting, yet flawed, characters. Fans of good fiction who want to be taken on an emotional journey should read this book!
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Mar 13, 2011 Girls Gone Reading rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pictures of You fluctuates between several characters, and that can be a tricky thing to do. Somehow Caroline Leavitt does this beautifully. Although Isabella was by far my favorite, both Sam and Charlie were well-rounded and touching.

Leavitt also takes several genres on at once. Pictures of You is mostly a women’s literature read, but it does include some mystery and paranormal aspects as well. Women’s literature, for me, follows the major decisions that a woman has to make. The novel helps her...more

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Feb 15, 2011 Lynn rated it 2 of 5 stars

Two women running away from their husbands meet - fatally- on a foggy road. Only one survives. How do you forgive someone who irrevocably changes your life? How do you forgive yourself? Does the fact that you weren't even at fault in all this make it any easier, especially when there is a child involved? Some readers have compared this author's writing to Jodi Picoult's. In fact, Jodi Picoult herself wrote a blurb for this book. Since she is among my favorite authors, I went into this book with...more

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Aug 31, 2010 Victoria rated it 5 of 5 stars

I stayed up until 2:30 this morning, and it's Caroline Leavitt's fault.

I've been reading this novel in portions, like a scrumptious meal that must be made to last, but when I settled down at 11AM for a nibble, I couldn't stop. PICTURES OF YOU is a lovely novel, heartbreakingly beautiful, touching. I wanted to hold the the three main characters to stop their pain. They were people I could love, worry about, encourage them along as they sought their own path toward happiness. The way Leavitt devel...more

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May 21, 2010 MK Brunskill-Cowen rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 20, 2011 BranDee rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book in about 6 hours. The beginning really gripped me, pulling me in so I was anxious to see how the story unfolded. It's an interesting book because the places I expected surprises I didn't get any (April), but some of the choices that the characters made did surprise me (Charlie, in particular). All the main characters feel very insulated to me, so when other (secondary) characters make an appearance, it feels like a jolt to the narrative. Not necessarily a bad thing, but highly n...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: own-kindle, june-2012, read-in-2012

I really don’t know how to rate this book nor what I should include in my review. I was deeply touched by this story but I just don’t like how I felt at the end of it and that in no way reflects the author’s writing.

I’d like to point out that I generally always read romance and I love myself a happy ending. With all the stress and pressures in life these days I read mostly for some escapism…I want to finish a book with a smile on my face and after I’d finished Pictures of You I just felt plain h...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

April and Isabelle don't know one another but they are both unhappy wives living a few blocks apart on Cape Cod. Then on one fateful day they both pack their suitcases and decide to leave their husbands. Three hours later in heavy fog, tragedy strikes. For reasons unknown until much later, April is standing in the middle of the road. Isabelle doesn't see her in time and hits her, killing April and injuring her asthmatic son, Sam.

Sam has glimpsed Isabelle and believes she is an angel that can let...more

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May 05, 2011 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I’ve read this author in the past and she is good at creating emotionally charged stories without venturing into sentimentality or cheesiness. Also, I always enjoy her reviews in People Magazine and have bought many a book on her recommendation. I loved her blurb at this end of this talking about reviewing books versus writing books. It was a nice bonus.

This books starts with a traffic accident – two women's lives literally colliding as they attempt to leave home. While I liked the premise, and...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Angel rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I first read the title, it reminded me of one of my favorite songs by The Cure and I wondered if it would have the same effect on me like the song used to...
From page one, the writing pulled me into the scene without simply handing me all of the details right away. The author makes you think about what she's presenting to you, keeping your interest up, and then hits you with a twist - there have been a lot of surprises and uncovered secrets already - and I'm only on page 98!
It's no surpris...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Judi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who like books that explore relationships

Recommended to Judi by: Amazon Kindle sale

Shelves: read-in-2012

I swallowed this book whole... and just for that, I bumped it up to 4 stars.

It isn't surprising that I would find the premise of this book alluring -- a woman dies in a car accident 3 hours from home, car packed with a suitcase, and her husband, Charlie, has no idea why she was leaving nor where she was going. Harder still, April was taking their son Sam with her -- leaving Charlie behind without a clue. Although Sam survives, he is only a kid and refuses to talk about it since he "knows" he ca...more I swallowed this book whole... and just for that, I bumped it up to 4 stars.

It isn't surprising that I would find the premise of this book alluring -- a woman dies in a car accident 3 hours from home, car packed with a suitcase, and her husband, Charlie, has no idea why she was leaving nor where she was going. Harder still, April was taking their son Sam with her -- leaving Charlie behind without a clue. Although Sam survives, he is only a kid and refuses to talk about it since he "knows" he caused the accident.

April is killed by a woman from the same Cape Cod town, who is also leaving her husband behind. But Isabel is leaving for a good reason. She has just learned that her husband of 20 years has been having an affair for 5 years and the other woman is having his baby; all the more hurtful since Isabel can't have kids.

With this premise, fate and other magical thinking drive the actions of the characters.... and yes, I expected to give up on the book. But Leavitt keeps the book grounded by exploring the car accident and the resulting grief from different perspectives letting the mystery of the reason for April's leaving to linger and consume the affected lives. Everyone has their own back story that gives them their own perspective of the events and their own guilt. And as strange as it seems, a unique love story comes out of it... but is it love, longing, guilt or grief?

Of course, we always bring something to the books we read, in for this one, it is a somewhat similar "plot" that consumed the better part of a year in my life after my sister had a horrific car accident in the middle of the night that left her a quadriplegic. She also had a suitcase in her car and was apparently leaving her husband and kids behind. She lived, but as is often the case with such trauma to the head and body, she has no memories of that day and the events leading up to it... or so she has steadfastly maintained. The family studied clues left behind but it is still a mystery. Nice fodder for fiction, and thus you can see why Caroline Leavitt's book attracted my attention.(less)

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Sep 16, 2011 Gina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, psychological-fiction, library, women-s-fiction

Isabelle is running away from her husband and life wanting to start over on a foggy day when she encounters a car facing the wrong way on the road. Trying desparately to stop her car, she sees a women in a red dress and a boy running into the woods. Later, Isabelle finds herself in a hospital and no one is willing to tell her what happened to the woman and boy. From this point on, the book is about 2 families trying to put together the pieces of thier lives after a tragic accident.

This novel loo...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Pamela rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

6 likes · like · see review

Heather Mize I SO totally agree with you. The book wouldn't have been all that bad if not for some of these outrageous issues, that really could have been solved i...more
May 07, 2011 11:24pm

Pamela YES. Totally, to all those things. The rushed feeling left me feeling disrespected as a reader, like this was a book that was churned out to sell rath...more
May 24, 2011 09:40am

Apr 22, 2011 Lisa Wolf rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

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Apr 07, 2011 Laurel-Rain rated it 5 of 5 stars

Like capturing the world through the lens of a camera, the author shows us bits and pieces of the characters. We catch a glimpse here, with some shadowing; then we see something illuminated; and finally, when we see the whole, it is transformed. But then again, we see the focus shifting.

In this extraordinary and mesmerizing tale, we first meet the women whose lives intersect tragically on a foggy night on the Cape, three hours from their homes. Coincidentally, the two women have been living in t...more

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Jan 31, 2011 Carol rated it 3 of 5 stars

I want to read more by Caroline Leavitt. Pictures of You was far from perfect but Leavitt's writing has potential. I'm usually not particularly fussy about spelling and rarely notice when facts don't quite jive or something in one scene isn't quite the same in another. I wish I had noted the actual instances where this happened but I didn't. All I know is I was a bit irritated when it happened. Little things, little things but enough to niggle my conscience and made the read less enjoyable.

I di...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Melodramatic, waaay too long and full of unlikable characters. I found pretty much every aspect of the story unbelievable, starting with the aftermath of the wreck and the way people treated Isabelle like a criminal.

The romance between two of the protagonists? Fake and kind of creepy.

The characters very inconsistent. When describing his upbringing, Charlie refers to his parents' chilly, distant relationship, but when we meet those characters 50 pages later they are the wuvy-dovey model of a hap...more

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About Caroline Leavitt

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You (Algonquin Books), which was on the Best Books of 2011 Lists from the San Francisco Chronicle, The Providence Journal, Bookmarks and Kirkus Reviews. It was also a Costco Pennie's Pick. Her 10th novel IS IT TOMORROW will be published by Algonquin in May 2013.

The winner of a New York Foundation of the Arts Grant, a second p...more

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