| Product: |
Mercy - Jodi Picoult |
| Date: |
20/06/08 (136 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Liked Allie and Cam
Disadvantages: Unbelievable in parts
Allie MacDonald and her husband, the police chief - Cam MacDonald - live in a lovely town. Their marriage is a happy one if not for all of Allie's efforts going into keeping Cam happy, not because he is an unreasonable man but because she loves with every fibre in her body.
On a regular morning for them however, Jamie MacDonald, a cousin who had not really been close to Cam at all, turned up at the police station with his dead wife in their car claiming to be the one to have killed her. He is distraught and won't let anyone touch her body.
It is Cam's job to bring him to trial for the killing of his wife, although things are never that easy when it is a case of a mercy killing. His wife was riddled with cancer and she was going to die an even more painful death than the life she was trying to live and she had asked Jamie to kill her. Trouble is - where is the proof?
I have read and enjoyed lots of other Picoult books before this one and I was excited to start this, expecting to be lost in the story immediately, however it took me a few days to really get into it and I contemplated giving up after a couple of chapters as I didn't get an immediate connection with the story.
There is a lot of talk about Scottish clans and Scots vs. English history, and I found this really boring to read about. Some of it was associated with the story, like Cam's family history and how he ended being chief of police in Wheelock and other family background stories were needed as well to help us realise the way the family had been brought up over the generations, however a lot of it left me glazed over and bored and this was new from a Jodi Picoult book for me.
There were really two stories running side by side through this novel and it was not the euthanasia story line that grabbed me. Whilst this was interesting to read about in parts, there didn't really seem to be anything that really caught my sympathy for the characters. Jamie MacDonald, the husband who killed his wife, just made me think he was too arrogant in his pure love for his wife. I couldn't imagine his character doing what he did, or doing it for the right reasons. I didn't dislike him but found him a bit false and ultimately chapters about the trial were read simply to get onto the next portion of the story I liked.
The other story flowing through and intertwined was one of extra marital affairs. The people involved in this, Cam and Allie, were more believable and I could understand why and how things progressed the way they did, although I got really annoyed with Allie's acceptance and the way she dealt with it. I guess she took the grown up route in a way, except for the revenge she took in the very first chapter of the book, but other than that she seemed to be a sexually powerful woman, who was happy to be trodden on and have every other part of her personality squashed.
The two story lines eventually merge into one but in the meantime I felt events were only occurring to make something in the other part fit in better. I was disappointed with this book by Picoult. I read it without too much trouble once I had settled into the beginning but it didn't turn in to a page turner for me like her other novels have and I would certainly not recommend it as a first Picoult read. If you have read and enjoyed her other works then this may still be enjoyable for you but I found it too waffley in parts and unbelievable in others.
Available from all good book sellers and Amazon but I got mine from Bookhopper.co.uk - a book swapping site and very good one too. x
Summary: Recommended for Picoult fans but not as a first book. x
|
|
