nglofile's review against another edition
1.0
Against my better judgment, I was persuaded to give another Picoult book a try. I am afraid all this did was reinforce my aggravation. Why does this author have such a wide and intense following? Her characters are largely unlikable, and Charlotte was absolutely loathsome. The only one I could stand was Willow, and even she was suffering from Saintly Sick Child Syndrome. Plot contrivances are shoveled on, and the recipe analogies were tedious. The climax was completely unsubstantiated, and the denouement is a flagrant shock-for-shock's-sake-only twist that doesn't make any narrative sense.
Generally I don't have to like a book to understand its appeal, but apparently I have a blind spot when it comes to this one.
Generally I don't have to like a book to understand its appeal, but apparently I have a blind spot when it comes to this one.
kcoccia's review against another edition
5.0
UGH WHY!? Why that ending?
I knew it was going to happen... just not that way. (And I'm a little upset about it.)
I knew it was going to happen... just not that way. (And I'm a little upset about it.)
sarose13's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 stars rounded up. Gosh this story was intensely emotional! I’m interested to see if my feelings on all these books change if I ever become a mother. Because right now I feel so frustrated with every mother in every Jodi Picoult book! Why on earth would she think it’s a good idea to sue her best friend?! Ugh!! So terrible, what a horrible friend! But it makes for an interesting roller coaster of a story. The only reason I didn’t give 5 stars was due to all the recipes. Didn’t care for those, and I didn’t think they added to the story.
jodiereads_'s review against another edition
5.0
I can’t stand reading books twice except for hers. I actually read this book a long time ago before becoming a parent myself and wanted to do so again. It of course contains a lot of “hot” topics and causes you to really think which I like- and of course I always appreciate the “twists.”
fkshg8465's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
What a very sad saga. Hated the ending. Hated the plaintiff attorney's backstory. Hated the second person narrative. All that out of the way, thought the topic of ableism was delicately handled. We need more stories addressing ableism. Most of us suffer from this bias unconsciously. We need more of these stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Eating disorder, Grief, Pregnancy, Self harm, Abortion, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Ableism, Animal death, Medical trauma, and Rape
mmasten's review against another edition
3.0
This book was the typical Picoult style. I thought it was decent but a little frustrating at times (reading it from a medical point of view) and a little predictable. However, if you enjoy Picoult - worth a read.
kleedc73's review against another edition
4.0
Jodi Picoult always delivers emotional stories with completely different, but authentic, points of view of numerous characters. This book is no exception. The story revolves around Willow, a girl born with "brittle bone" disease, who by the age of 5 had suffered approximately 60+ breaks of various bones. The story is very reminiscent of My Sister's Keeper, in many ways, with a lot of exploration of how having a "special needs" child puts strain on a family and affects each of them in innumerable ways, particularly other "healthy" children in the family. In addition, the book includes what has become for Picoult a trademark legal issue, this time involving the concept of "wrongful birth." What keeps me coming back to Jodi Picoult books is the honesty with which her likeable but flawed characters deal with very difficult issues and the authenticity with which Picoult manages to speak in different voices. I must note, hoever, that the I thought the ending of this book was somewhat trite and not believable but I won't spoil it by going into more detail for purposes of this review.
If you have read and liked other books by Jodi Picoult, this one is well worth reading.
If you have read and liked other books by Jodi Picoult, this one is well worth reading.
sophierea's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
twylghast's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
Where the hell do I start with this? It was just one mess after the other.
One character did two fairly bad triggering things and was never held accountable or even seemed to be aware of either of them, much like the author (I’ll just say the character was the cop, which honestly only makes it worse). The teenager girl, the older daughter, was basically saddled with three mental health issues treated in such a shallow way all it did was basically reinforce to the reader who’s never experienced those things that you can snap your fingers and be better, that having your family “love” you should be enough to cure everything…even if this “love” is basically pretending they see you and forcing treatment, as if that would ever be as simple as it was made to be here…in short, this is a Hollywood book and this is not a compliment.
Feel free to waste time on it if you like, but please don’t believe everything is as simple as it’s made to be in this book.
One character did two fairly bad triggering things and was never held accountable or even seemed to be aware of either of them, much like the author (I’ll just say the character was the cop, which honestly only makes it worse). The teenager girl, the older daughter, was basically saddled with three mental health issues treated in such a shallow way all it did was basically reinforce to the reader who’s never experienced those things that you can snap your fingers and be better, that having your family “love” you should be enough to cure everything…even if this “love” is basically pretending they see you and forcing treatment, as if that would ever be as simple as it was made to be here…in short, this is a Hollywood book and this is not a compliment.
Feel free to waste time on it if you like, but please don’t believe everything is as simple as it’s made to be in this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape and Violence
Moderate: Self harm and Vomit
Spoiler
The cop character rapes his wife and is very violent to a teenager unnecessarily. Never held accountable for either, by other characters or even himself. Their daughter is made to be bulimic, a self-harmer, and steals things from stores. This is treated in a really shallow way and never addressed in the book meaningfully.sammilittlejohns's review against another edition
1.0
So what actually was this book??
Firstly I would just like to say I used to LOVE Jodi Picoult books, when I was younger I loved the book 'Second Glance' and also heard a lot about 'My Sisters keeper' which I actually saw as a movie, and I imagine the book is just as sad? So yeah I bought a few of her books when I was younger but never got around to reading, so thought I would get around to it now in my spare time when I was getting into reading again but my. god.
Honestly I was going to mark this as a two star, as it was OK , until I reached the end. I find her style of writing itself quite nice and not cheesy as a lot of similar authors are, but then in this book she had that weird style of dedicating it to Willow. I thought this had a purpose, as in they would present this as a journal to her at the end or something cheesy people do on their 18th birthday to suggest a happy ending??? Yet it really serves no purpose. Same for the random time jumping she did at the start and gave up on halfway through. A few of the characters i didnt even get why they would be writing to Willow, like the lawyer? But as I got to the end I couldn't see this 'disappointing' ending people were upset about??? That was until literally the. last. page. Just feels as if the author realised that nothing had happened in all her book and put in the ending as an afterthought, just so stupid.
I just feel like this book is kind of like: what was the point??? It took a thousand years to get to the court case. It then took a thousand years to get the court case over with. Every character was annoying 99% of the time and everyone was also soooo dramatic. Also nothing happened. At all. Feel like this could have been a genuinly interesting topic, but everyone was so selfish, dramatic and undeveloped it didn't get anywhere to do anything.
Firstly I would just like to say I used to LOVE Jodi Picoult books, when I was younger I loved the book 'Second Glance' and also heard a lot about 'My Sisters keeper' which I actually saw as a movie, and I imagine the book is just as sad? So yeah I bought a few of her books when I was younger but never got around to reading, so thought I would get around to it now in my spare time when I was getting into reading again but my. god.
Honestly I was going to mark this as a two star, as it was OK , until I reached the end. I find her style of writing itself quite nice and not cheesy as a lot of similar authors are, but then in this book she had that weird style of dedicating it to Willow. I thought this had a purpose, as in they would present this as a journal to her at the end or something cheesy people do on their 18th birthday to suggest a happy ending??? Yet it really serves no purpose. Same for the random time jumping she did at the start and gave up on halfway through. A few of the characters i didnt even get why they would be writing to Willow, like the lawyer? But as I got to the end I couldn't see this 'disappointing' ending people were upset about??? That was until literally the. last. page. Just feels as if the author realised that nothing had happened in all her book and put in the ending as an afterthought, just so stupid.
I just feel like this book is kind of like: what was the point??? It took a thousand years to get to the court case. It then took a thousand years to get the court case over with. Every character was annoying 99% of the time and everyone was also soooo dramatic. Also nothing happened. At all. Feel like this could have been a genuinly interesting topic, but everyone was so selfish, dramatic and undeveloped it didn't get anywhere to do anything.