# Jodi Picoult **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 25, 2009, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541 "2009-12-25T11:59:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![I\_Have\_Hippos\_In\_My\_Garden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4491bb/32.png) [@I\_Have\_Hippos\_In\_My\_Garden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Have_Hippos_In_My_Garden)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/1 "2009-12-25T11:59:41Z")
Jodi Picoult has written a fair few number of novels in the last few years. What are other Dopers’ opinion of her? What is your favourite Picoult book? Up until recently I really began to dislike her books. They all began to feel too similar and actually became rather boring. However, I am reading ‘Change of Heart’ at the moment and am enjoying it so much. I may have a renewed liking for her 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/2 "2009-12-25T12:20:57Z")
Eh. The only book of hers that I read was the one about the sister who had been conceived specifically to be a donor to her older sister. It was ok but it didn’t make me want to run out and read everything else she wrote. ---
**Author:** ![mecaenas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mecaenas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mecaenas)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/3 "2009-12-25T12:38:50Z")
I read My Sister’s Keeper, the same book Inner Stickler mentioned. I liked it, she managed to flesh out the characters quite well, and I was impressed how well she could write from a man’s perspective. It’s not in my top 10 books of all time, but I’d recommend it to others. ---
**Author:** ![Gabing\_Gaboing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b38774/32.png) [@Gabing\_Gaboing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gabing_Gaboing)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/4 "2009-12-25T12:48:01Z")
I have read all of her books. They do seem to follow a pattern, all culminating in a shocker at the end. Still, I like them because they can really draw you in. Unfortunately, after I read them I am kinda feeling like “wha???” I like _Salem Falls_ the best because even though I knew there would be a shocker at the end, I did not expect the twist it took. ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/5 "2009-12-25T15:21:20Z")
They do very much fall into a pattern, and I’ve been less interested in them recently. The two I like best are probably [Songs of the Humpback Whale](http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Humpback-Whale-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743431014), because of how the story unfolded forwards and backwards, and [Perfect Match](http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Match-Novel-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743418735/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_12), which was the first of hers I read. But a while back I tried to read the one about the comic book writer and his daughter, and found it just too disturbing and icky to continue. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/6 "2009-12-25T15:46:30Z")
I am plowing through everything she’s written! Sure a tad formulaic, but I just LOVE her work. She’s given me many sleepless night, because I can’t put her down. Just checked out and read three in a row. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/7 "2009-12-25T17:35:27Z")
I like most of her books. I particularly did not like _Change of Heart_, because of its heavy-handedness on the convict-is-Christ analogy and the anti-death-penalty screed. I have no issue with Picoult’s views on the death penalty; I just don’t like being beaten over the head with other people’s political views, **whether I agree with them or not**. It wasn’t what she had to say; it was that I read Picoult’s books because she usually bases plots on topical, relevant issues and gives me something to think about. In _Change of Heart_, she based a plot on a topical, relevate issue and tried to tell me what to think. I feel the same way about _Mercy_. I also didn’t like _Picture Perfect_, either, just because I thought it wasn’t up to her standards; I thought the plot was banal. _Nineteen Minutes_, in particular, _Handle with Care_, and _Keeping Faith_, in particular, I thought were excellent. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/8 "2009-12-25T19:43:51Z")
I’ve read several of them, and the one that stood out to me as particularly good was _Nineteen Minutes_. ---
**Author:** ![norvalnormal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f19dbf/32.png) [@norvalnormal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norvalnormal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/9 "2009-12-26T23:40:55Z")
I’ve (proof)read over a half dozen of 'em, and they really are the same book over and over: the mother filled with a heartbreakingly boundless love for her special child (special as in: personifying a currently newsworthy Affliction); her budding romantic entanglement with a man “met cute” whose occupation is grist for either emotional conflict or professional conflict of interest; the woman’s comparatively neglected physically or mentally “normal” other (teenaged) child, who acts out in petty criminal acts or other self-harming behaviors; the last acts in a thematic-threads-tying-together courtroom setting … That said, they’re well crafted and the author has a distinctive sense of humor and isn’t _always_ hitting the reader over the head with the book’s Theme. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Have\_Hippos\_In\_My\_Garden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4491bb/32.png) [@I\_Have\_Hippos\_In\_My\_Garden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Have_Hippos_In_My_Garden)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/10 "2009-12-27T09:53:08Z")
**norvalnormal** I totally agree with you, hence why I don’t think I will read anymore of her books. Having said that I have just finished ‘Change of Heart’ and I did enjoy it. I did skim a few of the middle chapters because like **Sigmagirl** said, I felt as though religion was being preached to me, but apart from that it was a middle of the road, good read. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jodi-picoult/522541/11 "2009-12-27T15:01:09Z")
I’d read and enjoyed a few of her books, but My Sister’s Keeper totally kicked my ass. I hadn’t realized it was her shtick to do the surprise twist at the end, and was completely absorbed in MS’sK to the point where I ran away to lock myself in the bath when I got close enough to finish the book. The death at the end felt like such a kick in the teeth, just so unnecessarily emotionally manipulative, I think I wound up throwing the damn book across the room I was so mad. I haven’t picked up another one of hers since then, but I’m sure eventually enough time will pass that I will.