It's very rare for me to read a book that I almost feel the need to review or simply write about, but The Pact was a real page turner for me, and enough to want to tell the world about.
For me The Pact is one of those books which leaves you reeling for days and without realising my attention often turned back to it for quite a few days after I had finished. Page after page I wanted to read more and I struggled to put it down. During lunch breaks at work I'd run out of the office, sit down with my lunch in the car and pull the book out. Half an hour went far too quickly and I'd find myself running back into work realising I had been reading for longer that I had anticipated. No one can say it's not one of those books that's impossible to put down and leaves you literally spellbound. It's thought-provoking and emotional, which to me gives a good read.
I've read various Jodie Picoult books, from My Sisters Keeper to Handle with Care, which all explore various tough and emotional topics which many authors would shy away from.
Through The Pact, Picoult paints an indelible portrait of families in anguish which unfolds as an astonishingly suspenseful drama.
For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other and shared everything from Chinese food to chicken pox. They've always been so close that it's hard to imagine a life without one another, which results in no surprise that children Chris and Emily's relationship soon blossoms into something more during high school.
As readers we are introduced to Chris and Emily at the age of 17. Something in their love story goes horribly wrong and within the first few pages of the novel a midnight call from the hospital reveals Emily is dead from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet - a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described. Before long we learn it was Emily's emotional turmoil, compounded by pregnancy, which she keeps secret, leads to depression, despair and a desire for suicide, and she insists that Chris prove his love by pulling the trigger.
Picoults ability to intertwine reminiscent memories with the bitter circumstances of reality allows us to learn the real reason why Emily wound up dead that night and what really happened on the Carousel in her final moments. Aside from this, portions of the novel are set in the past giving us a feel of Chris and Emily's journey through adolescence, beginning with colourful childhood memories and ending in a passionate romance.
If you're against reading books with a little bit of sex in then I wouldn't recommend this. By no means is it the next fifty shades, but it introduces first-time sex and awkward encounters between both sets of parents in the aftermath following the shooting. Picoult even goes as far as a parent manipulating another through the use of sex, but I won't ruin that bit for you as I find it an important part in the book which only shows what lengths a parent would go to, to get justice for their child.
Throughout we are given both sets of parents views and take on what happened that dreadful night and watch as they question just how well they know their children. It's only a few short days after Emily's funeral that her parents learn the results of the autopsy. It turns out Emily was pregnant, something neither Emily's parents, Michael nor Melanie knew. The Police detective states that Chris killed Emily to keep the baby from interfering with his future and a few days later on his eighteenth birthday, Chris is arrested.
Fast forward some time and throughout the novel we learn that as a child Emily was sexually abused in Mc Donalds toilets; a secret she has never told anyone, not even Chris, who never knew the exact reason Emily wanted to die.
Jordan McAfee, Chris's lawyer does not want Chris to tell him what happened the night Emily died, he wants to prepare the defense that has as little to do with the truth as possible. Jordan plans to say that the night Emily died, Chris and Emily had intended to die together in a suicide pact. The fact that Chris now claims he was never suicidal keeps Jordan from allowing Chris to testify. However, the longer Chris is in jail, the more he wants to tell the truth. When his cellmate is convicted of killing his infant son and commits suicide in federal prison, Chris becomes desperate to tell the truth to someone. Finally Chris blurts the truth to his mother. Despite this he's given the verdict of not guilty and returns home to set about life without his one true love, Emily.
I wanted to recommend this to some younger friends to read as Picoult carefully addresses the worries of a young teenager growing up and I am sure their thoughts and feelings are mirrored in Emily's own words. However, add in the seduction, the first-time sex and I decided against it.
In my opinion, Picoult has once again written a book that openly discusses the intensity of adolescent angst and the power and failure of parent and child bonds.
Jodi Picoult - The Pact
Sian Lovatt
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
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