Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult is her latest book, and it is a book that caused me to think about deeper issues a little less, but be surprised about the mystery and where Picoult took the story a bit more than her other novels.
Basically, Leaving Time is a mystery like story about elephants, a 13 year old girl looking for her scientist mother, complex situations, and unlikely people coming together. I enjoyed it, and for that reason I gave it 4 out of 5 stars in my book review.
I thought the story was unique, and I was completely surprised by the ending. I thought it wasn't as emotional of a struggle as many of Picoult's books, but it was still well done. While reading this latest Picoult book, it reminded me of Nicholas Sparks Safe Haven book b/c they both are a little out of the author's norm.
I did think the book was a bit slow at times, and I found myself wanting to speed read instead of savoring the written text. I also felt at times, while reading (and it makes sense why at the end), that things were just too perfect for Jenna while she was searching for her mother. She was able to travel on the bus w/o buying a ticket b/c she "snuck" herself in with a family. That event was followed by another just too perfect situation of Jenna finding a truck that goes to the elephant sanctuary she is trying to reach and hiding in the bed.
While reading those "perfect" situations I was a bit disappointed that it didn't have any sort of conflict. The "perfection" and the slowness at times is mainly while Leaving Time lost a star my book review.
However, I would still recommend this book to those looking for a good interesting read, and I think a high school library as well as public libraries should add this novel to their collection. High school students (11th and 12th grade), especially honor, AP, and dual credit students could use this book for a literature review paper; there is a lot they could discuss and analyze.
This adult fiction novel is actually quite clean; there is little language and instances that implied sex, but there were no real details were given.
Amazon had the following book description:
"Throughout her blockbuster career, Jodi Picoult has seamlessly blended nuanced characters, riveting plots, and rich prose, brilliantly creating stories that “not only provoke the mind but touch the flawed souls in all of us” (The Boston Globe). Now, in her highly anticipated new novel, she has delivered her most affecting work yet—a book unlike anything she’s written before.
For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe she was abandoned, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice’s old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts.
Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest: Serenity Jones, a psychic who rose to fame finding missing persons, only to later doubt her gifts, and Virgil Stanhope, the jaded private detective who’d originally investigated Alice’s case along with the strange, possibly linked death of one of her colleagues. As the three work together to uncover what happened to Alice, they realize that in asking hard questions, they’ll have to face even harder answers.
As Jenna’s memories dovetail with the events in her mother’s journals, the story races to a mesmerizing finish. A deeply moving, gripping, and intelligent page-turner, Leaving Time is Jodi Picoult at the height of her powers."
Are you a Jodi Picoult fan? I still think My Sister's Keeper may be my favorite Picoult book; which one is your favorite?
Happy Reading!
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