I read this for a book club that I was recently invited to join (yea!). Otherwise, based on my review of My Sister's Keeper, I don't think I would have picked up another Picoult book.
Jacob Hunt has Asbergers, and acts out in ways that are different and hard to understand. His mother has been a single parent since her second son, Theo, was just a few months old and her husband walked out on them. Jacob loves the show Crimebusters (read: CSI) and forensics. He sets up crime scenes for his mom to solve and religiously watches the show.
But Jacob's social skills therapists turns up missing, and is found dead. And Jacob admits to moving her and setting up the crime scene. He's charged with her murder and the book really is on how the justice system fails people that don't communicate the way "normal" people do, and how they can't really get a fair trial.
My issues:
1. This is so much like My Sisters Keeper it made my eyes hurt. Jacob needs 100% of mom's attention, Theo the younger son acts out by breaking into houses and stealing things. (MSK - Kate needs 100% of mom's attention, older brother acts out by setting fires around the city). Even the writing was the same - different chapters from each persons perspective.
2. The different perspectives - I don't need to see how EVERY conversation is viewed by EVERY character. I mean the book could have been 300 pages shorter if she would have stopped doing that.
3. I get that Jacob has to do the same things every day. I get that he eats colored foods on certain days. I get it. I get that he got in trouble in school for hurting that one girl. I get it. Quit telling me. Quit hitting me over the head with it. This was just bad editing.
4. I don't think she understands Asberger's or Autism very well. I know she researched it. BUt like one reviewer said on Amazon, it's like she took EVERY symptom and put them in Jacob, which doesn't really make sense. I have a relative that has Asberger's and he has some of the symptoms she describes, but if he had the others, well he'd have Autism and not Asbergers. They are not the same. They are actually on two different ends. I just don't think there are people that have both. But maybe I'm wrong.
5. The ending. Oh mylanta how ridiculous. It just ends. Done. No resolution. No answer to any question at all. Not even one of the strings are tied up. Does Emma have a relationship with Oliver? Does Jacob's Dad remain in the picture? DOES JACOB GET CONVICTED OF MURDER? Does he go to jail? Does Theo get in trouble for breaking into houses? What happens? Seriously. Maybe don't tie it all up, but you can't write nearly 600 pages (I mean dude, that took me a long time to read, I have a small baby - finding time to read is hard) and then NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS. I feel cheated.
6. It was really hard for me to read this book. I don't like anything that's about bad things happening to children. I don't like thinking about Autism and the spectrum. I kept looking at Grady ... and it just makes my heart constrict and breath stop.
7. And vaccines. Experts and doctors can tell parents all day long that getting your children vaccinated is the best thing and that there is no link between vaccines and autism, and people don't listen. Pop culture books like this one and the one written by Jenny McCarthy come out and people rave and want to stop getting their kids vaccinated. I almost returned it when I got to the parts where she blamed Jacobs condition on his vaccinations. She says it over and over again. Even in my book club, where most of us have kids under a year old, there were moms that said they were scared of getting their kids vaccinated. I had to shake my head and point out that illnesses that are perfectly preventable are coming back and KILLING kids because people aren't getting vaccinated.
I don't like putting chemicals in G's body either. But if they keep him safe? Babies that get the flu can die. Babies are dying all over from Whooping Cough because parents aren't getting boosters.
Those were my issues. I kept reading because I wanted to see the train wreck. And there wasn't a crash. We came slowly up to the top and then it never went down. It's like the train is still stopped at the top of the hill.
Some in the book club think that we'll hear what happened to Jacob in another book. But I don't think I'll be buying another Picoult book.
No comments:
Post a Comment