Review: Leaving Time

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Title: Leaving Time
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Source: The library
Synopsis: 

Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment - or worse.

Still Jenna - now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief - steadfastly refuses to believe in her mother's desertion. So she decides to approach the two people who might still be able to help her find Alice: a disgraced psychic named Serenity Jones, and Virgil Stanhope, the cynical detective who first investigated her mother's disappearance and the strange, possibly linked death of one of her WC mother's coworkers.


Together these three lonely souls will discover truths destined to forever change their lives.

Review: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

'I think grief is like a really ugly couch. It never goes away. You can decorate around it; you can slap a doily on top of it; you can push it to the corner of the room—but eventually, you learn to live with it.'

I know when I pick up a Jodi Picoult novel that I'm bound to enjoy reading it. So, instead of wondering whether it will be a good book, the question is whether this one would be the one to top Nineteen Minutes for me.

For Leaving Time, the answer is no, but that didn't mean it sucked. I enjoyed the mystery in this book, and that twist at the end was brilliant. After I finished, I flipped back through the book to re-read the clues she'd dropped and wondered how I missed it. I also loved reading about the elephants; the stories about their plights and how they grieve at times affected me more than the journey of the actual characters. And speaking of the actual characters, I found some of their relationships were predictable - The Metcalf's marriage is a pattern that's in every Picoult book, but I suppose you can't have a family drama without it - and so I didn't really care about how those unfolded. I loved Serenity Jones though, and her character is one I'd love to see again.

So basically, I loved the plot and was sucked in every time I opened this book, but I can think of a few Picoult novels I've enjoyed more.