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A review by lonelyasfranz
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
3.0
Broadly and generally speaking, there is no other word to describe this book but "fine". For the most part, it met the bare minimum of general writing standards, but basically all of the writing surrounding the character of Ellie as a person (which would include the characters of Stephen, John, and, arguably, Leda) was vague, predictable, generic, supremely irritating, and severely underdeveloped, not to mention infuriatingly pointless and, ultimately, empty. I feel that the wrong romance was focused on; we spend an inordinate amount of emotional energy on Ellie's ultimately inconsequential love life, while Adam's and Katie's relationship is completely and utterly glossed over and even more under-developed than the former. This irritated me very much, especially considering that a rare opportunity for a romance to be covered that was so strongly intertwined with and instrumental in the plot, the MAIN PLOT of the book was disgraced and spat upon, but I was able to ignore it and skim over the parasitic bits enough to handle the rest of the book with a vague sense of satisfaction, if not basic, dry, (trust me) minimal pleasure. However, the legal ending was rushed and the story ending was a jumbled, confusing mess. Did Sarah actually kill the baby and then hide it, or did she simply hide it after it had already succumbed to natural causes? This is never answered, and I suspect it never will be, meaning that I will never truly be capable of justifying my reading of the book, an unusual experience, based on my knowledge of some of the author's other works. Ellie never bothers to come to a solid conclusion about it, instead opting to ride off into the sunset with her leech of a Prince Charming. This was the worst Jodi Picoult book out all of the ones I've read-I've come to a decision that it will almost certainly be my last-, and the only reason I'm gracing it with three stars is because the plot was brilliant, and select parts of the book were admittedly a tad lovely, but the writing as a whole and, more often than not, individually, was beyond poor, and it seems like it was written by an eight-grader.
Two side-notes:
1. Frank seemed to serve no purpose other than being part of Leda's excommunication. I wonder if it would not have been better to make her reason for living more individually-based, so as to avoid the need for absent characters such as himself.
2. I only really noticed the mystery of Aaron's aloofness and silence when it was brought up in the reading group guide. I feel that this would have been something nice had it been added to the story as a more involved aspect of the plot, but given its nature, I'm not exactly sure that it would have worked. Just a thought on my part, really, but a bit of an instinct, as well.
Two side-notes:
1. Frank seemed to serve no purpose other than being part of Leda's excommunication. I wonder if it would not have been better to make her reason for living more individually-based, so as to avoid the need for absent characters such as himself.
2. I only really noticed the mystery of Aaron's aloofness and silence when it was brought up in the reading group guide. I feel that this would have been something nice had it been added to the story as a more involved aspect of the plot, but given its nature, I'm not exactly sure that it would have worked. Just a thought on my part, really, but a bit of an instinct, as well.