Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
As usual, Jodi Picoult comes up with a very interesting and controversial topic for a book. A mother whose child is born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, sues her doctor, who is also her best friend because the doctor failed to find out that her child had the disease until it was too late to abort.
The thing is, her child, Willow, was born five years ago, and even if she’d known ahead of time about the genetic disorder, she’d never have aborted the child. She’s suing because she wants to secure a better future for Willow, one where they won’t have to struggle to make ends meet paying for Willow’s surgeries and hospital bills because of her breaks and fractures.
I’m a big fan of Picoult, and I love most of her books. I love that she tackles controversial topics, and I love her writing style, which is so natural and engaging. However, I feel that Picoult is now being controversial for the sake of being controversial.
The subject matter of the book and most of the story is very interesting, but towards the end of the book, and especially with the verdict, a lot of things didn’t make sense. I couldn’t understand how the verdict could be what it was, with the testimonies presented. I felt like she ran out of things to say, and didn’t know how to continue with the story, as if the topic was a hypothetical one where she couldn’t find an answer to present to us.
Also, the ‘twist’ at the end of the book… I remember watching an interview of Picoult a while ago, where she says people expect twists in her books, because, hey, it’s Picoult, so in that particular book, there was a twist of a twist. The problem is, the ‘twist’ in this book was so unnecessary, and knowing that she did it for the sake of doing it made it really cheap. She calls it a twist. I call it jumping the shark.
It’s as if she feels her books can’t be good unless there are twists, but honestly, I think she’s an amazing writer and really doesn’t need to have twists in her books all the time!
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