Jodi Picoult protagonists

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As is my wont, I’ve discovered Jodi Picoult and gone through her entire published oeuvre like a forest fire.

I generally find her fabulous at putting both sides of an argument across, creating sympathy for her viewpoint characters, showcasing how differing perspectives can be reached from reasonable viewpoints.

I’m not a mother yet though, and I tend to find her mother characters really extreme and annoying. Not all of them, but really most of them. Melanie Gold, Charlotte O’Keefe and Nina Frost in particular. They seem like really awful characters who don’t care who they hurt, including their child, to appear the “perfect parent”, possibly in tribute to whatever they’ve given up in service of being a mother.

This may be an inflammatory post or it may get no views, but Picoult is widely read so I’d be fascinated by other opinions.

I find her pretty hit & miss. Some of her books I haven't bothered finishing.

From memory I think Charlotte O'Keefe was the Mum in "Handle with Care"? I agree she was a terrible character, really unlikeable. She couldn't even explain to herself why she was doing what she was doing, she just charged ahead to the detriment of everyone she cared about.

The mum in the book about raising a child with severe autism was pretty hard to take too.

I read a lot of Jodi Picoult possibly in the 00s and like you say they were avidly consumed by me. But only at that time . I had to stop reading them as they started draining my MH. Sometimes I will look at a cover and think oh I used to like her but know I have to leave them on the shelf.

Thanks for the replies! Yep, Charlotte O’Keefe was Handle with Care. I’m a bit cross with Picoult for the ending as well because after putting us through 600 pages of that, she basically made it all entirely pointless. Maybe it was Karmic punishment for having hurt all those she loved?
The autism mother was also not the most pleasant person but with her she had to advocate on behalf of her child, who due to his condition was unlikely to win hearts and minds.

I think that's what comes of trying to shoehorn your characters into some stupid dilemma. You end up with extremes to sit on 'sides'.

I used to really like Jodi Picoult then went off her, I have only read one of her recent books and didn't enjoy it (Mad Honey).

I'm not sure if it's because her earlier books were actually better, or just because she is very formulaic so, although she is a talented writer, once you've read 5 or 6 they start to become repetitive! Her main characters do seem to have similar personalities/thought processes/traits, but I guess that is part of the formula.

But the first books of hers I read are my favourites - loved My Sisters Keeper, Second Glance, and Plain Truth.

I’ve also read Mad Honey and had mixed feelings about it, but I did actually think she toned down the mama bear stereotype in her main mother characters in that one. And yes, she is formulaic: there’s going to be an ethical dilemma, a court battle and the main character is going to insist on testifying to “tell the truth” leading to a shocking twist, lol. She does write well though. I just find it almost impossible to empathise with the mother characters most of the time as they’re just SO hard, driven and totally focused on their child to the exclusion of all else.

I'm not sure if it's because her earlier books were actually better, or just because she is very formulaic so, although she is a talented writer, once you've read 5 or 6 they start to become repetitive! Her main characters do seem to have similar personalities/thought processes/traits, but I guess that is part of the formula.

Agree with this. Loved her books at one time and ate them up but then started to get bored of the repetition. Also a lot had the final third of the book in the courtroom, and I just found that section really dull in most of them.

@MermaidEyes those are my favourite parts! I’m a British lawyer and do get annoyed at the theatricality of American proceedings as portrayed, and Picoult takes full advantage of the jury never having to give reasons for their decisions to deliver a surprise! Absolution for the defendant. However, her research seems immaculate and I love getting into the little details.

It's funny, because I hate courtroom dramas, whether in book or tv form, and yet I love true crime, which obviously includes lots of courtroom scenes 🤷🏻‍♀️

I forgot about Plain Truth, that's probably my favourite.

My Sister's Keeper was ok, the ending was iffy at best though. I hated the movie but thought the ending was better?

What was the one where the Mum kills the paedophile who molested her son, or so she thinks at the time? That was too far fetched for me.

I find her very formulaic and a bit to black and white at times. I have read quite a lot of hers over the years but can't read more than a couple a year without getting frustrated.

I did think "A Spark of Light" about racism was good, and "Tenth Circle". I found the one about the school shooting was a disappointment, I had read "We need to talk about Kevin" recently and that just absolutely overshadowed it.

Perfect Match, I think? Because of the DNA issue. REALLY unlikeable protagonist in that one. I struggle with vengeance at the best of times but when someone actually literally kills someone and then through the text informs us that she’s acting out an insanity defence… no. At least Charlotte in Handle With Care needed the money to cope with the totally unreasonable American medical bills for her daughter.
I really liked Plain Truth too - a sympathetic portrayal of a fascinating community and for once a mother who wasn’t a tiger, but whose actions were understandable in the context of her community and her love for her daughter. I also sympathised with the mother in Nineteen Minutes - actually much more sympathetic than We Need to Talk About Kevin mother.

Wait until you read My Sister's Keeper.

The mother's contempt for her youngest child is palpable.

I didn't get on with Jodi Picoult but I do the same thing in terms of finding an author I like and then burning through everything they've written.

I think it often doesn't do the books any favours though, because things that wouldn't be repetitive if you read one book every year or so as they come out become irritating when you devour them one after another. I can not stop doing it though .

Perfect Match, that's the one. Yes, the revenge in that was contrived from the start, but I did finish it. I too like the courtroom drama of some of her books!

Handle with Care was interesting- I'm into medical/ethical issues, so this grabbed me for those plus the legal stuff. But I still couldn't warm to Charlotte. So much so that I asked my aunt (who's a senior OBGYN) if Charlotte's OB friend was liable or not for 'failing' to diagnose OI at that point in the pregnancy??

She basically said hell no, but you're talking about America. Apples and oranges.

I forgot to say- yes the ending was bloody awful! I just had a flashback of Charlotte leaving the cheque for millions on the fridge. Urrrgh!

@Goodornot My Sister's Keeper was awesome! I've mentioned it on my other thread 'Domestic Noir, good writing'. It's not domestic Noir but a compelling read nonetheless. I think it was made into a film which I remember as being underwhelming compared to the book.
I'll have to get hold of Handle with Care.

I really liked her books for a while but then I realised they were very samey and formalistic.
You had the "disease of the week" issue, combined with a "book within a book" story (or dull chapters about Wolves - whichever book that was) and a character with a really vague job that you can't believe is an actual job. I can't remember which book it was that had the character who roamed the hospital with her guitar to sing to dying people - but that was weird.
The last one I tried to read was the one with the neo-nazi characters. When it started with the back story of how they became that way I just didn't like it. I didn't really want to read how people found their "community" within a neo-nazi group.
Sorry Jodi - I liked your books for a while.

The only one I've read is Perfect Match and it was such nonsense I would never read another of hers.

I agree re formulaic approach, but I like how comforting that is.

However for those who haven’t read it, try Wish You Were Here which breaks away from the formula and might be her best ever book.

In fact a lot of her more recent ones break away from the court scenes, but still have a lot of turn-taking in perspectives.

Although my second favourite was House Rules which doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of love here so my radar might be off 😂

I think the alternative perspective is really important though. I’m not saying we should support neo-nazis but they are humans who I assume think they are doing the right thing. We shouldn’t dismiss them out of hand because we disagree with their views. I think her tackling some
of those difficult topics and perspectives is why we should read her books.

My New Year’s resolution this year was to read more books from perspectives totally different to mine (eg trans ideologists, neo nazis, marginalised communities, political leaders of parties I wouldn’t vote for) as I felt my world was getting a bit echo chamber with curated social media etc etc - it’s important to do this to remember that everyone is human and to try to ‘heal’ the binary divide we seem to have in society on all issues nowadays.

@PosteriorPosterity I just found it quite hard because it felt like we were being built up to feel we should sympathise with the neo-nazi characters - but then that felt awkward (if that makes any sense).
I also dislike when there is a twist at the end - like the Handle With Care one.

Agreed the Handle with Care twist makes the whole thing a bit arbitrary - I would recommend it though if you skip the last chapter, it’s similar to My Sister’s Keeper but the stakes are a bit more even - it’s not life or death. Everyone does things they could be criticised for but they’re understandable once they’ve said their piece. There’s a courtroom battle but instead of that being the denouement and the resolution of the drama, it actually reads more as a critique of the unsolvable issues with (particularly American) litigious cultures.

Re Small Great Things (the racism/neo-nazi one) I actually really liked that one. The mother in that doesn’t fit the mould of a typical Picoult mother - possibly because as she says in her afterword she spoke to a lot of African-Americans to understand how they feel functioning in society, so the mother isn’t as fearlessly assertive and frankly occasionally obnoxious as some of her other protagonists. But I loved Ruth, who is a midwife and therefore doesn’t have a “nonsense” job and mainly just models really good values for her son while trying to maintain her family’s self-esteem throughout the events of the book. She somehow also manages to make us (or just me maybe) feel sympathy for white supremacists - even when they’re doing despicable things you can see it’s coming from their upbringing and self-hatred, coupled with the echo chambers they’re living in.

She’s done one about wolves and one about elephants, which I actually quite like because you get to learn new facts - it’s like Dick Francis where you get to learn about a new profession every book! (JP and DF are both comfort reads for me, JP a very recent addition, I do also read intellectually challenging stuff). I’m very empathetic emotionally but have problems working out what others are thinking, so it’s super interesting to get inside someone’s head from every perspective for a few hundred pages.

Really enjoying discussing these, thank you!

Yeah that is a fair point.

It helped to remember that Jodi Picoult is very liberal in her politics if you follow her social media so she was not pushing an agenda and must have found it difficult to write, but it did make me reflect a lot on my own prejudices as it was perfectly viable to feel sympathy for those people separate to their abhorrent views.

I thought the neo-nazi one is one of her best books (I’ve read it twice and almost never re-read hers unless I’ve forgotten I’ve read them!)

the elephant one - I read that a second time and kept thinking it was familiar until I realised I’d definitely read it before - that was quite a good twist I think (sixth sensey?)

the playing music in the hospice was the Egyptian one wasn’t it - the book of two ways?

others that no one has mentioned that stuck with me - The Pact (suicide pact between two teens - can’t remember what happened!), the Storyteller (holocaust one, I think it was good?) what was the one about the girl and some sort of religious miracle?