So this is the first book by Jodi Picoult that I have read, recommended because she often writes about lawyers. Of course, I pick one of her books where there aren’t really any lawyers except for a minor cameo in the concluding third. Oh, well.

I found Harvesting the Heart extremely well-written and engrossing. It’s all very real and there’s something a tad traumatic about Picoult’s portrait of young motherhood. There are horrifying (probably only to a childless woman) moments that read like birth control in print form. But ultimately, the story skillfully captures how very different women can be mothers and, in a sense, be exactly the same - not terrified or terrible, but capable, and enough. I liked that characters who I found frustrating had the good sense to grow and evolve, to make choices I disagreed with vehemently, and to find a way to a resolution that worked. Like about 95% of all modern fiction, the end comes too quickly, too pat, too neat, but it’s the ending you root for so it’s forgivable.

Posted on Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 at 11:27 am in Lit.
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