The Pact

Product Information

Not sure about spoilers here. I think I danced around things pretty well, but you may want reconsider your decision to read further in case I messed up.***

In the fall of 1979, the Golds, consisting of a recently pregnant Melanie Gold, and her husband Michael Gold, moved into the small town of Bainbridge, New Hampshire. They moved in next door to the Hartes, another coincidentally pregnant couple, and through their shared interests, the women, Gus Harte and Melanie Gold, began to forge a lasting friendship. Their husbands, James Harte and Michael Gold would follow suit and the families would soon raise their firstborns together.Do you know... what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing [them]? Or what it's like to touch someone, and feel like you've come home?" I knew the premise of this book was teenage suicide but I still found it very disturbing. As a mother I could not imagine anything more devasting then the loss of your child, by whatever means.

I smoke a lot, sometimes I even drink a lot. If I'm not getting into trouble, it's because I'm sleeping. I don't have any friends that's how I prefer it, and although most dad's don't want their daughters dating boys, I think my dad wishes I would. He worries that I'll end up alone. I don't want to spend my life with someone who could step out and leave me one day. Like mom did. I'd prefer to save myself the heartache. So I'll always push people away, due to fear of getting hurt, that and the fact that I just don't like people.This book had a strong impact on me. I loved the ending, I loved the trial and I felt it had a lot of passion in general. This is the best of Picoult's that I have read.* During your commute: If you take public transportation or have a long commute, you may find it helpful to use that time to read.

Michael...for turning to Gus....did not like where I thought that was going to go....thank God it didnt.The Pact: A Love Story sets up a suicide pact between a pair of young lovers, but only one of them takes a bullet and the other ends up on trial for murder. From the outset we know that Emily's suicide is far more complex than Chris lets on, and the "truth" that we are destined to hear is fairly easy to guess, but the telling is compelling. Picoult prepares us for the big reveal by taking us through a decade of her main characters' lives, making us care for them, forcing us to empathize with them regardless of their actions. Picoult trusts that we will recognize their complex moral lives, the good and the bad in all of them, as something we all share whether we choose to believe it or not. Anyway, I couldn't resist adding my opinion to the pile. This was my first Jodi Picoult book, and as I read it, I was captivated. She chooses good topics, and her writing really pulls you in. At the time, reading her can feel intellectually stimulating as her books raise interesting psychological questions. I dont fully understand how he could have gone through with helping her commit suicide, and not tell someone...either her parents or his? I wonder if he did, if things would have ended up okay, or if she would have went ahead and done it alone? Emily told nobody, however, of the difficulties that she was encountering in dealing with the newer sexual side of her relationship with Chris. Perhaps it was the simple stress of living up to everybody's expectations of the future of their relationship. Perhaps it was the residual psychological stress of a close experience with sexual assault and rape when she was a much younger girl. Perhaps it was her disturbing sensation that sex with Chris was rather too akin to an incestuous relationship with a brother. Stress, confusion and mental turmoil lead to profound depression and despair with the conviction that the only escape was suicide. Of course, because Chris was the only person she felt she truly loved and could completely trust, she asked him to help her complete the act of suicide.

I felt sorry for Emily and Chris' parents. They both lost a person they love and Chris' family was struggling through their son's imprisonment and trial. The teenagers families were once so close and now Emily's mother becomes bitter and vindictive and her father looks for comfort from Chris' mother.Every time I read a Jodi Picoult story, she just shreds my heart and leaves me sobbing. That is exactly what happened while reading THE PACT. Emily and Chris have been best friends since they were born. Their parents are next door neighbors too and best friends as well. That is until that fateful night when everyone's lives change, one even ends. Trust me, hang on tight! The emotions roller coaster Jodi Picoult puts her readers on with THE PACT is one crazy ride. It almost frightens me to realize how little sympathy I have for someone who (it is later revealed) has a somewhat plausible explanation for her dark thoughts. Yet, isn't this what therapy is for? Clearly, neither she, nor her doting parents or their enmeshed best friends' parents had an ounce of sense to recommend assistance that was not only available, but calling out from the core of their middle class existence! When I first started I thought it was about a suicide PACT...but really, it was a different PACT alltogether. I also thought the book was about twice as long as it needed to be. It seemed to go on and on and I got impatient reading it. To sum up, I wanted to tell the main character's girlfriend (I've forgotten all of their names, mercifully), to "get over yourself!!" I'm not giving anything away when I reveal that the "pact" of the title involves her asking her boyfriend to help her commit suicide. Of course, a dramatic trial ensues. What moron couldn't have predicted that--which is another reason why I loathe this person for placing her boyfriend in unnecessary legal trouble of the Shawshank Redemption kind.