1.04k reviews for:

Plain Truth

Jodi Picoult

3.88 AVERAGE


It sucked me in right from the first pages. Such a great read! It was gentle and agonizing in all the right places. The end felt like one I saw coming although there weren’t many clues. Just a feeling…. It was just what I needed to start off the year.

This book was great in its accurate description of Amish life, as well as in the plot's twists and turns.

Love Jodi Picoult & especially this book. To have it set in Amish country is perfect. The irony is so incredible, because here's this stereotypical "perfect piece of Heaven" that something so terrible happens in.

A great book. Definitely could have been shortened to 300 pages, or even 250 and have been just as good, however. For this it loses a star.

This was an ok read. Not her best work but it was mildly enjoyable.

Das Buch lag auf meinem Uralt-SuB, aber ich habe es überwiegend in der englischen Hörbuchversion erlebt (ich muss leider teilweise zu Hörbüchern bzw. Hörbuch-Unterstützung greifen weil ich fürchte, sonst mein Ziel nicht zu erreichen).
Die Sprecherin hat zwar einen sehr guten Job gemacht, aber die Figur der Katie kam mir unglaubwürdig vor und ich konnte leider keinerlei Sympathien für sie aufbringen.
Ich finde die Amisch grundsätzlich nicht unsympathisch und lese sogar recht gern über sie, weswegen ich auch zu dieser Lektüre griff. Aber diese Auffassung von Wahrheit und Lüge kann ich hier null komma nicht nachvollziehen. Leider habe ich den Respekt vor Katie recht früh verloren und auch nicht wiedergewinnen können. Dafür waren mir die anderen Figuren - auch die amischen- umso sympathischer, weswegen ich die Lektüre auch nicht abgebrochen habe. Ich mag Picoults Stil, daher alles okay.
emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Jodi Picoult is always a good author to read. Amish community, infant death.
emotional sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A high powered attorney considering some life changes ends up in an Amish town, and gets sucked into the murder trial of a teenage girl when a dead baby is found in the barn. Despite denying the baby, giving birth, or even being pregnant at all, Katie Fisher is arrested for murder and put on trial. Lawyer Ellie commits to defending her, and ends up living on the farm with Katie and her family.
The story delves in to the cultural differences, the mental anguish of isolation, and we follow a twisty path to find out what really happened to that baby. I thought it was a classic Jodi Picoult legal thriller, with romance and family drama woven throughout. The reveals of the shunned brother, the dead sister, the college boyfriend, all built up this complicated world that Katie lived in. I thought Jodi did a good job making it clear why Katie would admit to some things and not others, and the courtroom climax over the reveal of the listeriosis kept me on the edge of my seat. I was also, frankly, gagged by the reveal that the mother DID kill the baby, out of fear she would lose another child. Jodi always has the 11th hour twist that makes you rethink the whole theme. Like...what is a mother's love? How far does it extend, and who earns it?

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

Why I continue to read these books stumps me. But then again I also continue to eat jumbo marshmallows straight from the bag, and I can't explain that either. Ending baffling, ghosts baffling, courtroom transcript improbable, one great big gob of white marshmallow, which I dutifully and numbly downed. Sure, I like them. Don't judge me because I sometimes slum.