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Mar. 4th, 2009 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mangofandangoOkay so, tomorrow I am really for sure going to go to yoga in the evening. I tire of being too..whatever to go. So I am going! SO SAY WE ALL.
I just finished my second Jodi Picoult book ever. The first one I read because I wanted to be aware of this Jodi Picoult person people liked so much, and she is a local author (she was more local at the time, I think, when I lived in NH). So I read "My Sister's Keeper", which had a very interesting concept, and I enjoyed it... up to the end. You may be aware that I inadvertently let Jodi Picoult know, directly, that I felt the ending was a "total copout" by saying so in a bookstore as she walked by. ;)
So anyway - I read "Nineteen Minutes". It's set in a fictionalized Dartmouth area, where we used to live (ish), and it's about a high school shooting. I ended up enjoying some things about it, in the same way I would enjoy a good episode of Law and Order or something. It is Dramatic and Emotional, and realistic-fictiony at a time when I was in the mood for that. But I have some complaints again. The biggest one is this:
The girl in the book (who survived the shooting) was dating a boy (who was killed in the shooting). He is shown clearly to the reader to be abusive and and controlling. We see this behavior over and over in flashbacks, and yet the girl's reaction is never discussed. She doesn't acknowledge it, or reflect on it in a way that makes us aware of what she thinks or feels about it. I wondered whether she realized she was being mistreated - sometimes, people don't, or they discount it because the popularity and the relationship are more important in their minds - etc., etc., I just expected some discussion of the girl's point of view. I spent a lot of the book wondering why the abuse was never really acknowledged. When I got to the end, I understood why, sort of - I think it was because if it had been, then we might have been more able to guess the twisty twisty ending.
The problem with that is that I spent a large portion of the book wondering about it, and not in the good way. Also, while it made the ending fall into place, it robbed it of some of its power. The girl apparently "loved him, and hated him, and hated herself for loving him" - but we didn't have a clue about that until finding out...well, that she felt this way with enough strength and clarity to do what she does in the end. Maybe I should have inferred that, but I didn't - and I was looking for it.
So, mixed feelings. But there, I've read some realistic adult fiction. Now on to Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and "FreakAngels", and oh hey maybe "Watchmen" real quick-like.
I just finished my second Jodi Picoult book ever. The first one I read because I wanted to be aware of this Jodi Picoult person people liked so much, and she is a local author (she was more local at the time, I think, when I lived in NH). So I read "My Sister's Keeper", which had a very interesting concept, and I enjoyed it... up to the end. You may be aware that I inadvertently let Jodi Picoult know, directly, that I felt the ending was a "total copout" by saying so in a bookstore as she walked by. ;)
So anyway - I read "Nineteen Minutes". It's set in a fictionalized Dartmouth area, where we used to live (ish), and it's about a high school shooting. I ended up enjoying some things about it, in the same way I would enjoy a good episode of Law and Order or something. It is Dramatic and Emotional, and realistic-fictiony at a time when I was in the mood for that. But I have some complaints again. The biggest one is this:
The girl in the book (who survived the shooting) was dating a boy (who was killed in the shooting). He is shown clearly to the reader to be abusive and and controlling. We see this behavior over and over in flashbacks, and yet the girl's reaction is never discussed. She doesn't acknowledge it, or reflect on it in a way that makes us aware of what she thinks or feels about it. I wondered whether she realized she was being mistreated - sometimes, people don't, or they discount it because the popularity and the relationship are more important in their minds - etc., etc., I just expected some discussion of the girl's point of view. I spent a lot of the book wondering why the abuse was never really acknowledged. When I got to the end, I understood why, sort of - I think it was because if it had been, then we might have been more able to guess the twisty twisty ending.
The problem with that is that I spent a large portion of the book wondering about it, and not in the good way. Also, while it made the ending fall into place, it robbed it of some of its power. The girl apparently "loved him, and hated him, and hated herself for loving him" - but we didn't have a clue about that until finding out...well, that she felt this way with enough strength and clarity to do what she does in the end. Maybe I should have inferred that, but I didn't - and I was looking for it.
So, mixed feelings. But there, I've read some realistic adult fiction. Now on to Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, and "FreakAngels", and oh hey maybe "Watchmen" real quick-like.
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I am still on a numbered list kick.
Date: 2009-03-05 01:55 am (UTC)2. I have read the same two (and only two) Jodi Picoult books, too.
3. I actually used the word "copout" to describe the ending of My Sister's Keeper. I won't give spoilers for folks who haven't read, but I'll say it failed to resolve what I saw as the central conflict of the story.
4. Overall, I did think Nineteen Minutes was the better book, but I have the same big complaint as you do. In order to really feel satisfied by the ending, I wanted some evidence that she was processing -- even unconsciously -- this guy and their relationship.
5. It kind of makes me want to read other Jodi Picoult books right up until the last chapter or two and then just write my own endings. :P