All I can say is wow! The first impression is beyond what I have imagined. Miss Walker was right about these books being “page-turners.” Each paragraph is the satisfaction of figuring out or concluding what’s going to happen next. Wow is the best word to sum it all up.
At first, I was completely confused. When the narrator has dialogue said between Josie and her mother, both “technical” names are used. It would refer to “Josie said” and “Alex said.” In the beginning I was mixing up the mother’s and daughter’s names. I am use to when a mother talks in a book, it would be referred to as “mom said” instead of her formal name. That got me completely confused. Besides this minor mind-mixer, I was wondering how I was going to keep the plot line and characters in the correct part of the story. I had to constantly go back and look up characters and their story in the book. This was mostly confusing when Lacy Houghton came into the picture. I was getting Alex and Lacy confused when each other’s lives when they were brought together by Alex’s pregnancy. In general, the characters get me very confused when I read. I even went to the extreme of writing out character plots and their relationships with the other characters to look back on.
After getting past the main concern of character interactions, I couldn’t put the book down. As soon as the book got to the school shooting, I couldn’t stop gasping. I look to this school shooting as something that could happen at Hoover. As Patrick, the police detective, described each step he took through the school, I couldn’t help but think he was walking through our school. Each body lying on the floor I imagined as people I knew. As he walked through the cafeteria and gym, I could practically see the blood on the walls of Hoover. I could see all the books scattered from every hallway to the nearest exits. I am sad to think this, but I realized that at anytime, this could happen to us. I could be the one sitting at lunch, when a student starts to shoot. I could be the one lying dead on the floor near my dearest friends. Picturing Hoover helped my need to keep turning the pages.
Overall, I am very impressed with the book. I can’t wait to read more.
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2 comments:
The whole name labeling has to do with the position that Picoult uses for narrator. It is third person, but not entirely omniscient, because instead of directly telling us thoughts, it shows the reactions of people and flashbacks, and lets the reader decide.
There are a lot of characters, but I can't bring myself to take notes for much of anything, much less a novel I'm reading for English class.
Picturing Hoover adds to the realism of the novel. The author uses vague stereotypes to create a shell of a high school. Picoult doesn't have to go into to details, she just gives a setting and we fill it in with our own memories. It's kind of cool actually. Think back to the part about the locker room scene, and you automatically make it the Hoover locker room. Also, picture Peter eating his cereal in the Commons, and it almost fits. It's a bit disturbing...
When I first started reading about the school shooting, I pictured everything happening in Hoover like you did. It seems like the last place something like that would happen, but then, so did Sterling to the characters in the book. Picturing everything in North Canton just made everything seem so much more real, so real that maybe it could actually happen. The different issues that the characters in the book face are most likely very similar to those of people that we pass in the hallways everyday. It seems so terrifying to think that maybe this COULD happen, maybe even tomorrow.
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