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The Pact: A Love Story Mass Market Paperback β August 29, 2006
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βEngrossing...The Pact is compelling reading.ββPeople
In this heart-rending tale of love and friendship, Jodi Picoult brings to life a familiar world, and in a single terrifying moment awakens every parentβs worst fear:Β We think we know our children . . . but do we ever really know them at all?
The Golds and the Hartes, neighbors for eighteen years, have always been inseparable. So have their childrenβand itβs no surprise that in high school Chris and Emilyβs friendship blossoms into something more. But the bonds of family, friendship, and passionβwhich had seemed so indestructibleβsuddenly threaten to unravel in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.
When midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the truth. Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. Thereβs a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris pilfered from his fatherβs cabinetβa bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris describes.
This extraordinary, poignant novel paints an indelible portrait of two families in anguish . . . and creates an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris is put on trial for murder.
- Print length512 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow Paperbacks
- Publication dateAugust 29, 2006
- Dimensions4.19 x 1.02 x 6.75 inches
- ISBN-109780061150142
- ISBN-13978-0061150142
- Lexile measure760L
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βItβs hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes.βΒ β Financial Times
βPicoult is a skilled wordsmith, and she beautifully creates situations that not only provoke the mind but touch the flawed souls in all of us.βΒ β Boston Globe
"Picoult always tells both sides of a story not with judgment, but with grace.βΒ β Washington Post
βPicoult is a writer who understands her characters inside and out.βΒ β Roxane Gay, New York Times Book Review
From the Back Cover
Until the phone calls came at three o'clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is deadβshot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pactβleaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoultβone of the most powerful writers in contemporary fictionβcomes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.
About the Author
JODI PICOULTΒ is the #1 New York TimesΒ bestselling author of twenty-six novels. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the New England BooksellerΒ Award for Fiction, the ALAβs Alex Award,Β the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit, and the prestigious Sarah Josepha Hale Award in recognition of her distinguished body of written work. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children. You can visit her website atΒ wwww.jodipicoult.com
Β
Excerpt. Β© Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Pact
A Love StoryBy Jodi PicoultHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright Β©2006 Jodi PicoultAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0061150142
Chapter One
Now
November 1997
There was nothing left to say.
He covered her body with his, and as she put her arms around him she could picture him in all his incarnations: age five, and still blond; age eleven, sprouting; age thirteen, with the hands of a man. The moon rolled, sloe-eyed in the night sky; and she breathed in the scent of his skin. "I love you," she said.
He kissed her so gently she wondered if she had imagined it. She pulled back slightly, to look into his eyes.
And then there was a shot.
Although there had never been a standing reservation made, the rear corner table of the Happy Family Chinese restaurant was always saved on Friday nights for the Hartes and the Golds, who had been coming there for as long as anyone could remember. Years ago, they had brought the children, littering the crowded nook with high chairs and diaper bags until it was nearly impossible for the waiters to maneuver the steaming platters of food onto the table. Now, it was just the four of them, blustering in one by one at six o'clock and gravitating close as if, together, they exerted some kind of magnetic pull.
James Harte had been first to arrive. He'd been operating that afternoon and had finished surprisingly early. He picked up the chopsticks in front of him, slipped them from their paper packet, and cradled them between his fingers like surgical instruments.
"Hi," Melanie Gold said, suddenly across from him. "I guess I'm early."
"No," James answered. "Everyone else is late."
"Really?" She shrugged out of her coat and balled it up beside her. "I was hoping I was early. I don't think I've ever been early."
"You know," James said, considering, "I don't think you ever have."
They were linked by the one thing they had in commonβAugusta Harte&8212but Gus had not yet arrived. So they sat in the companionable awkwardness caused by knowing extremely private things about each other that had never been directly confided, but rather blurted by Gus Harte to her husband in bed or to Melanie over a cup of coffee. James cleared his throat and flipped the chopsticks around his fingers with dexterity. "What do you think?" he asked, smiling at Melanie. "Should I give it all up? Become a drummer?"
Melanie flushed, as she always did when she was put on the spot. After years of sitting with a reference desk wrapped around her waist like a hoop skirt, concrete answers came easily to her; nonchalance didn't. If James had asked, "What is the current population of Addis Ababa?" or "Can you tell me the actual chemicals in a photographic fixing bath?" she'd never have blushed, because the answers would never have offended him. But this drummer question? What exactly was he looking for?
"You'd hate it," Melanie said, trying to sound flippant. "You'd have to grow your hair long and get a nipple ring or something like that."
"Do I want to know why you're talking about nipple rings?" Michael Gold said, approaching the table. He leaned down and touched his wife's shoulder, which passed for an embrace after so many years of marriage.
"Don't get your hopes up," Melanie said. "James wants one, not me."
Michael laughed. "I think that's automatic grounds for losing your board certification."
"Why?" James frowned. "Remember that Nobel laureate we met on the cruise to Alaska last summer? He had a hoop through his eyebrow."
"Exactly," Michael said. "You don't have to have board certification to create a poem entirely out of curse words." He shook out his napkin and settled it in his lap. "Where's Gus?"
James checked his watch. He lived by it; Gus didn't wear one at all. It drove him crazy. "I think she was taking Kate to a friend's for a sleepover."
"Did you order yet?" Michael asked.
"Gus orders," James said, an excuse. Gus was usually there first, and as in all other things, Gus was the one who kept the meal running smoothly.
As if her husband had invoked her, Augusta Harte rushed through the door of the Chinese restaurant. "God, I'm late," she said, unbuttoning her coat with one hand. "You cannot imagine the day I've had." The other three leaned forward, expecting one of her infamous stories, but instead Gus waved over a waiter. "The usual," she said, smiling brightly.
The usual? Melanie, Michael, and James looked at each other. Was it that easy?
Gus was a professional waiter, not the kind who carried food to tables, but the one who sacrificed time so that someone else would not have to. Busy New Englanders solicited her business, Other People's Time, when they didn't want to wait in line at the Motor Vehicles Division, or sit around all day for the cable TV repairman. She began to tame her curly red hair. "First," she said, an elastic band clamped between her teeth, "I spent the morning at the Motor Vehicles Division, which is awful under the best of circumstances." She bravely attempted a ponytail, something like leashing a current of electricity, and glanced up. "So I'm the next one in lineβyou know, just in front of that little windowβand the clerk, swear to God, has a heart attack. Just dies on the floor of the registry."
"That is awful," Melanie breathed.
"Mmm. Especially because they closed the line down, and I had to start from scratch."
"More billable hours," Michael said.
"Not in this case," Gus said. "I'd already scheduled a two o'clock appointment at Exeter."
"The school?"
"Yeah. With a Mr. J. Foxhill. He turned out to be a third-former with a lot of extra cash who needed someone to sit in detention for him by proxy."
James laughed. "That's ingenuity."
"Needless to say, it wasn't acceptable to the headmaster, who wasted my time with a lecture about adult responsibility even after I told him I didn't know any . . . "
Continues...
Excerpted from The Pactby Jodi Picoult Copyright Β©2006 by Jodi Picoult. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : 0061150142
- Publisher : William Morrow Paperbacks (August 29, 2006)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780061150142
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061150142
- Lexile measure : 760L
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 4.19 x 1.02 x 6.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #16,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #625 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #1,314 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)
- #1,737 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight novels, including Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.
Her next novel, Mad Honey, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, is available on October 11th.
Follow Jodi Picoult on Intagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @jodipicoult
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The Golds and the Hartes have been friends for a long time. They're next door neighbors who have become close. Their children Emily Gold and Christopher Harte have become close over the years, and it comes as no surprise to their parents. Then, out of the blue, Emily Gold kills herself in what was apparently supposed to be a suicide pact between Emily and Chris. Now Emily is dead, and Chris is alive and well, and he's the only one who has any answers. Now Emily's parents are trying to find out what happened to their daughter, and are also wondering just how well they knew her, while Chris is up to his neck in a legal squabble. The friendship between the two families that seemed eternal suddenly comes crashing down, as both sets of parents come to the realization that they didn't know their children quite as well as they thought.
Needless to say, there's a lot of drama in Picoult's novel, and a lot of emotional turmoil. Jodi Picoult is no stranger to dealing with tough issues and exploring them. The Pact is no different, but here Jodi Picoult goes further into the heart of the matter. By exploring not just how the character cope with Emily's suicide, but also what lead Emily to do it in the first place. The book plays out by alternating between the past and the present. The reader literally gets to know Emily's life story. We're there from the moment she is born, to the moment all the way to her death. As a result, the reader really gets to know Emily Gold. And not just Emily Gold. We get to know Chris Harte as well. In fact, we get to know every character and they all become incredibly well developed. Sometimes a little too much. We learn a little bit more about some characters than we'd care to know. At times Picoult can carry on about a character, but at least she keeps it interesting.
However, the story moves at a smooth pace. The read is, overall, a fairly quick one. And the drama keeps coming with all the twists and turns. It's hard not to feel Picoult pulling at your heart strings. All the drama and characters lead to a pretty big conclusion. In the past, Jodi Picoult has sometimes come to implausible conclusions. You might get a similar feeling here. The book is very enjoyable, and the conclusion is even alright, although it isn't entirely believable.
The writing stands firm. It's very well written with elegant prose and vivid descriptions. Sometimes you get the sense that Picoult is providing too much description. At the very least you'll never feel drowned out in it. The dialog is also nice, coming off as very natural rather than scripted.
The Pact is a very nice book that's filled with very lovable characters. Its sure to spark a bit of discussion among readers. It's a very likable book that is filled with it's own charms. It is one of Picoult's best.
Be it as it may, the story was heartbreaking and very well written in the descriptions of the parents and their reactions to the tragedy and the son who helped the daughter end her life. The arrest of the son, and his incarceration were well depicted. The courtroom scenes, of course, were spellbinding. For any parent or child who might have to live through an experience of this import, I hope you have a god who will be standing next to you to help you stay strong.
Even though I didn't like the way it was written, (jumping from pairs talking, different scenes, etc.) I know I can't be the only one who feels this way. Anyways, the story had a lot of potential but it didn't live up to what I thought it was going to be. There were some holes and the ending was blah. I can't stop thinking about how Mel threw the diary in the fire, and then that was it. It doesn't touch back on any of that. I didn't like Mel's character. I was expecting Gus and Michael to have an affair, I'm glad they didn't. Sorry, my review is all over the place. I just finished the book and I have all these thoughts running through my brain. Another thing that irritated me was the watch. Emily bought the watch before she knew she was pregnant. Probably before she knew she was going to kill herself. I know her emotions were building up and she was probably going to commit suicide eventually. I think getting pregnant really pushed her over the edge and that's when it was set, but that's not what I'm getting at. When they were questioning about the watch no one brought up the fact that she bought it before she was pregnant, and that's why she bought it. She didn't know she was going to feel so much pressure to be a wife and mother and whatever her parents thought she was going to be. If I was Jordan I would've used that in my case. Ugh. That didn't come out as smooth as I wanted it to but I hope that makes sense.
I was mostly disappointed that she was depressed about being molested. Not that you can't be depressed about being molested. But why did it have to be that? Thinking about what happened to her makes me sick and I wish I never read it. It's such a horrible thing to write and think about. I almost stopped reading the book because of it. I felt it was cliche. I wish it could've been something else. Why did she have to get molested? Why not just depression? I don't know. I'm blabbering.
I don't want to write a bad review because it's someone's work and I'm not writing books, why should I judge it? Uuugh. I don't know. I didn't enjoy the way it was written, I felt the story was kind of slow and left me feeling empty and depressed.
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2023