Overview
Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Small Great Things and My Sister's Keeper, a novel exploring the story of a young woman overcome by the demands of having a family.
Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who abandoned her at five years old. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence and shameful memories of her past force her to doubt whether she could ever be capable of bringing joy and meaning into the life of her child, gifts her own mother never gave.
Harvesting the Heart is written with astonishing clarity and evocative detail, convincing in its depiction of emotional pain, love, and vulnerability, and recalls the writing of Alice Hoffman and Kristin Hannah. Out of Paige's struggle to find wholeness, Jodi Picoult crafts an absorbing novel peopled by richly drawn characters, and explores motherhood with a power and depth only she is capable of.
“A brilliant, moving examination of motherhood, brimming with detail and emotion.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in her lush second novel. This story belongs to… the lucky reader.” —The New York Times Book Review
I don't want to say too much about the storyline and when things began to pick up for me, (may be a spoiler for some) but after a certain event happened, I couldn't stop reading. After I finished reading the book, I thought about my feelings regarding the first chapters. When Paige and Nicholas first meet, they are from different worlds. He has had everything handed to him and she has given up a dream that she feels she doesn't deserve. Despite their differences, they fall in love and decide to marry. During the early years of their marriage, I consider Nicholas to be extremely selfish and Paige to be very passive. Even for them, it was hard for both of them to be with the other. So, I'm wondering, as the reader, was it hard for me to be with them as well.
As I mentioned earlier, Paige comes to a crossroad in the marriage where she has to choose to move ahead or finally deal with the past she left behind. She makes a decision, that will set in motion events that will determine the fate of her marriage. Harvesting the Heart, for me, was typical Jodi Picoult. I finished the book with many questions and could not stop thinking about the characters. Actually, what was missing was a trial scene. Having read most of her recent books first, it was nice to go back and read one of her earlier works. Ms. Picoult has grown as a writer, however even then she knew how to tell a story.