Jodie Picoult

[WeirdHandDryers]

AUBU to find her one of the most frustrating writers ever? She seems to use the same characters for every book. There is always a “romance” in the most unlikely circumstances (cop falls in love with suspects mum!), pages ... sometimes whole chapters of irrelevant information. The songs of humpback whale was the worst one for this ... rattling on and in about whales when it actually had little relevance to the story other than the title.
If you’re reading a book, do you prefer a distraction from the main story or, like me do you just wish they’d focus on the story at hand?? I can’t understand why she’s so popular

They're dross.

Ergh the stupid standard courtroom drama shits me. It's like she has a template for a story and just changes the name and key story points. Copy, paste, done.

I agree with this summary. There is a lot of recycling.

I've only read one book. Thanks for making me aware of this.

I have tried to read 2 of hers and hated both. I don't get why she is so popular. Diane Chamberlain is so much better

Absolute shite.

I’ve only read one book but the main character was absolutley tedious, so down on herself and bloody miserable, oh and having an affair with a married man.

It did have a section written from the grandma’s perspective growing up as a Jew is wartime Poland which I thought was fantastic. The only decent thing about the book.

I've enjoyed some of her novels, but I agree her writing habits can be irritating - yes to all those you mention. She uses far too many similes - no one ever just laughs, their laugh has to be like rain falling on poppies or the flutter of a butterfly's wing or leaves rippling in the autumn breeze. Plus, the children in her novels keep popping up and making deeply significant remarks, far too frequently to be convincing.

It's like she has a template for a story and just changes the name and key story points. Copy, paste, done.

This.
She finds an issoo and feeds it into the write-o-matic machine.

I love a bit of Jodi Picoult precisely for these reasons You know exactly what you are getting when you pick up one of her books and sometimes that formula is what I need. There are always passages that are well written, albeit by accident more than design, and I walk away from the book having had a good cry, which is generally the reason I pick them up. They are largely nonsense, but even nonsense has its place!

😱
She's my favourite author and I was not expecting her to be getting a bashing when I opened this thread.
I do like easy reads though.
Each to their own but I like her books. And I've learned alot about law and medical conditions that I previously wouldn't have known anything about (god, I at least hope those bits are accurate so I don't sound like a knob).
We all have different tastes but I just wanted to say I like her books and have all of them.

I think there are some interesting ideas but I'm never satisfied with how it's handled

Yes I agree. I read one & quite enjoyed it. Then I picked up another & it felt like I was reading the first one again. I didn't finish it.

I only read one book by her. It featured a teen boy with autism. This poor boy had every single autistic trait going. (In my experience, people with autism have a mixture of traits, but not every single indicator, for example some may be sensitive to sounds and others not.) So I found it too unrealistic.

That links in with what OP said about the whales. It's like she thinks, "I've done all this research, so I'm going to shoehorn it in, whether it improves my book or not."

I have also read too many books like this and could see the plot twist coming, although I couldn't tell you what it is now - it wasn't that memorable.

I've read a few and enjoyed them. I liked the one about the Amish family and the one where the young couple have a suicide pact. I did get a bit fed up of them though as they were a bit samey.

I've only read one and as another pp said you could see the plot twist coming a mile off, also as it built to the dramatic finale realism went out of the window.

Nothisispatrick The Storyteller - 100% agree. The grandmother's story was really well done - if she'd stuck to doing that bit, it would have been a decent book, but she had to do her standard template.

All her books seem to have a lonely woman who just doesn't realise how wonderful she is, and needs to be rescued and firmly told so by Handsome Lonely Batchelor Who has been Unlucky in Love.

Also, she insists on having a (clunkingly obvious) twist at the end of every book (I assume, I've only read two). I guessed where she was heading each time, but really hoped she wasn't going to go there with Storyteller, as I'd have thought it was quite crass to use the Holocaust as a vehicle for a 'ta-da!!' moment.

Yes The Storyteller! Grandmother’s bit was brilliantly done. Really emotional and gripping, then the rest of the book was meh, I didn’t care for the lead character at all.

I agree the plot twists are obvious, but in fairness to Jodie P. plot twists are obvious in 99.9% of novels nowadays. The mention of a seemingly irrelevant detail or character acts like a flashing sign in most cases.

But isn't this what people read her for? Pile-em-high supermarket formulaic fiction, each one tackling a new ishoo (child abuse check! high school shooting check! abortion rights!) with cardboard cut-out characters and a clunky back-and-forth flashback structure?

I have read a few of them and find them very fixed. You can predict the storyline easily.

I do find that they are well researched however sometimes she contradicts the research and things we are told earlier in the story which I find annoying.

But isn't this what people read her for? Absolutely! They're the sort of novels I like to read as a distraction/time-filler. It isn't that I haven't enjoyed them, just that some elements of her style are grating. They're not the sort of novels you go back to read again to take pleasure in the quality of the writing itself.

I do like her books but yes the more i read the more predictable they are , I used to love Martina Cole but she basically writes the same story over and over again.

I refuse to read her books since my sisters keeper. It was unnecessary nasty. I put up with a few before then but shes not a good writer ok for a holiday read and im a click lit fan

My mum loves her books and the ones she writes as JD Robb. I can't stand them though. Far too "light", much prefer something I can get my teeth into.