Jodi Piccoult

[Chris]

A friend lent me a copy of Nineteen Minutes, what a load of predictable, poorly written, drivel! Not my cup of tea!

[Jillybeads81]

I can Not stand her books! Why do people like them so....
I have no idea..because I just don't see the appeal. Every time I read one of her books...I feel like I just watched/read an after school special on lifetime
Ewww...
Are these books even considered "adult" books? Seems like in every book I read of hers there's this lesson she is trying to teach her reader. There's a lesson for dad..a lesson for mom...a lesson for the child. Ewww..I'm sorry jodi..but the only "lesson" I'm learning from you is to never read a book you wrote again!!!!

[Marilynn]

I completely agree about Jodi Piccoult ~ but sometimes they’re my book club selection. When I’m reading a book I hate, I find myself constantly subtracting my current page number from the last pg number, to see how many more pages I have to suffer through (as opposed to a good book, where I don't want it to end).

[Booksaremyopium]

Lucky I dodged a bullet. I only read an excerpt from some of Jodi's books about 2 years ago because I was curious as to why she was so popular. (I think that was around the time My Sister's Keeper came out.) When I read her prose I knew she was the kind of author to avoid--I believe there are authors who could ruin your own kind of writing by reading them too often because they can influence you without you knowing it. So I never really read her.

I agree with you Shelley, on a lot of popular books being "mock-worthy."

[Emeryl]

Read first three pages of My Sister's Keeper and abandoned Piccoult forever. HOW women flock to this kind of weepy-sappy crap, AND LOVE IT, I'll never know.

These women are, undoubtedly, the target audience of Life (pardon me while I vomit) time.

[Lisa]

HATED My Sister's Keeper! I thought the ending of the book was a total and complete sell out, upending her whole point. Which was (as far as I can tell) that (1) you can ask too much of somebody else, particularly a family member and (2) obsession leads to horrible behaviour and judgment. By ending it with Kate surviving with Anna's kidney, she absolutely justified this mother's behaviour and attitude, which was it was ok for Anna to give whatever she (the mother) requested, no matter the cost to her, to keep the sister alive. By the kidney actually being the final fix (in other words, the pillaging of Anna's body would have stopped anyway if she had given this one more thing) it made her (the mother) RIGHT. and she wasn't right, she was nuts. Understandably nuts, but nuts anyway. And terribly abusing of her power as a parent. She really deeply believed (in spite of supposedly loving Anna) that she was being reasonable in her requests.

But another sell out was going through everything - in book and movie - the law suit, the dividing of the family, for this really appropriate position that Anna had (that enough was enough) - and then finding out Anna wasn't REALLY driven by her own convictions, that Kate had instigated her to file a law suit to end this never-ending drama and trauma of more and more medical intervention. HUHHHHHH?????

I felt totally and completly let down and will never read another Picault novel. Maybe it's a case of having good ideas and then scaring herself with them, with the landscape she's opened up. Or perhaps she tries to please everyone and not look bad in following through in the controversial topic. Which, if so, is wimpy.

[Allison Ann]

I live in a very small town, the library automatically orders certain authors, Jodi Picoult is one of them. I have read a few of her books and hated them all - most recently Sing You Home which I will rant about in a few minutes.

Every new Picoult book I pick up and read the back of I am convinced I have already read it. Then I realize it is a Barbara Delinksy novel I am thinking of. If you are going to steal a book plot wholecloth, why in the name of all that is holy would you choose a Delinsky novel to do it from? Delinsky is someone I would describe as writing literary junk food, sometimes you are just in the mood for something ridiculous. Picoult just makes me angry. In my imagination I often punch her in the face. I'm not a violent person but something about her just brings it out.

I recently read Sing You Home. If I had known what this book was about before reading it, I would never have picked it up. There isn't a single other storyline in the world that I hate more than a woman so desperate to be a mother that the whole rest of her life falls apart. It's rage inducing to me. But that is my problem and I can't blame the author for that. I can blame her for the preachiness (on both sides of the debate) and the lack of story. If it hadn't taken place in Rhode Island (needed for a challenge) I would have abandoned it on page 3.

[Smart&Pretty]

I just finished “A spark of light”. What a horrible piece of work. I think Miss Picoult squeezed too much drama in this one. Here is why:
1. You encounter so many different characters it’s impossible to tell which one is which.
2. All pro-life people are shown as monsters and hypocrites, abortion doctors are saints with hallo, pregnant 15 year old girls are martyrs. I finished this book in 8 days just to get over with its contents full of lame writing and lies.
3. The author spells Black with capital letters and brown(racewise) in lowercase IN ONE SENTENCE. What the fuck?
4. A 15 week old baby is not allowed to be called “a baby”, it should be called “tissue” only. Or something worse than that.
5. This book ignites racial hatred: it describes a situation when a white woman refused abortion procedure because the doctor was black. Really?!
6. This book feeds hatred between men and women because according to the author men are taking a woman’s right to her own body. Also author keeps referring to politicians as MALE politicians “who were so terrified of women that they designed laws specifically to keep women down”.
All in all this book is wrong on more levels that I can count. It should be banned from sales and libraries since it shows abortion choices and rights only from one distorted unfair perspective.
And most importantly: I don’t think the book about abortion trauma should be written by someone who never had one! It’s like writing a memoir about surviving Holocost and never setting your foot on German land.

[Barbara]

i enjoyed the one about the maternity nurse--I can't remember the name but OH MY GOD listening to Perfect Match and it is horrible. Can't tell how much is the over-the-top reader and ow much is the awful prose. In any case, I hate the protagonist AND her kid. One thing is sure: Picoult elicits strong (negative) emotions. this is it for me. complete crap.