** spoiler alert ** I have read most of Jodi Picoult's books, and they are always entertaining and easy to read. However, this one was definitely not my favorite, and I often found it a bit formulaic and poorly executed. Maybe it's because I HAVE read so many of her books that I was looking for her signature "twist" at the ending (which an astute reader will guess at halfway through the book, if not earlier), and her characters seem to act in certain ways that are not fitting.

***Spoilers Follow***

************************************************************

SPOILERS BELOW




The book is centered around a high-school shooting, the culprit a teenage boy named Peter Houghton, who to my mind is not a very convincing villain. The reader is supposed to empathize with Peter from the time he's a baby - this supposed "monster" is shown as a tender, loving boy who gets picked on mercilessly at school. The point, really, is to show that even the most sensitive, nice child can be turned into a killer when he is bullied relentlessly. But I still never really saw Peter, as he is portrayed in the flashbacks, as the same kid who was purported to have killed ten of his classmates in a murderous rampage.

Another loose end that never seems to get tied up is Peter's questioning of his sexuality. In one chapter, Peter is going to a gay bar and a GLAAD meeting, thinking he likes men. He is sitting next to Josie, another main character, and thinking that although she's pretty, he feels nothing for her. Fast forward fifty pages, and he's sending Josie a lovesick email about how much he wants to be a "couple" with her. The point of this, ostensibly, is to show that because the bullies tormented Peter with cries of "homo", that caused him to even question his own sexuality. But the email to Josie just seemed to be a convenient, and very out-of-character, move to tie plot points together.

The most baffling of all, and the hardest to accept, is the infamous Picoult plot twist which is set up through the whole book, via a "second gun" with only a partial fingerprint, that seems to have been fired but nobody can find the bullet, and it's lying on the floor in the room with Josie, her dead boyfriend, and the shooter. Glimpses of a quasi-abusive relationship between Josie and her jock boyfriend surface, and then the bombshell - JOSIE shot the boyfriend! And THEN Peter shot him too! Despite the fact that Josie loved him. Or hated him. Despite the fact that Josie has shown no inclination toward homicide, and happens to be standing face-to-face with the boy who has just slaughtered all of her friends. Does this seem believable to anyone? Again, it's ostensibly because Josie doesn't see another way out of this relationship - the jock boyfriend has threatened to kill himself if she ever leaves him. But shooting him in the gut? That's a bit overwrought and hard to swallow.

I write this review as a loyal fan of Jodi Picoult's work, and an ardent fan of books like "The Pact" and "My Sister's Keeper". I just wish Picoult would step out of the box a little bit and shake things up - just like moviegoers are starting to tire of M. Night Shyamalan's plot twists and wacked-out endings, so I'm beginning to be unsurprised and underwhelmed by Picoult's work.