The Pact | Jodi Picoult

Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Avon (August 29, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061150142
ISBN-13: 978-0061150142

It was only a matter of time before Chris and Emily fell blissfully in love. Brought together at birth by parents who were already the best of friends, Chris and Emily spent every waking moment together developing a bond no one could break. Their parents always knew and hoped the two would fall in love and marry some day. It didn't take long for their hopes to become true. Emily and Chris started dating young, as the years went by their love grew stronger eventually leading into intimacy. Emily was uncomfortable with being intimate with Chris because of something from her childhood even Chris knew nothing about. Chris kept pressuring her until eventually she gave in. (I didn't like this part of the story, It's never OK to pressure someone into something they don't want to do.) It's this intimacy that would eventually lead to the beginning of the end.

It was a phone call at 3:00 am that would divide the Hartes and the Golds after seventeen years of friendship. The families are called to the hospital where they learn of Emily's death and a suicide pact gone wrong between Emily and Chris. Despite Chris's story about a suicide pact, the police believe something very different happened. Something more a long the lines of murder. Chris is thrown in jail and faced with the fact that he could spending the majority of his life locked in a prison cell. The families are both torn apart and trying desperately to just make it through another day.

The Pact was a tragic, but riveting tale of two very close families torn apart by a truly heartbreaking event. The novel switches been the past and the present, allowing you to understand the characters and what brought them to the point they are at in the story. I love Jodi Picoult's writing. She's very good at hooking you early and reeling you in so slowly until the end where she yanks you up and leaves you breathless. Her novels touch on real life issue's giving you a connection with the story. The Pact was another one of her novel's that pulled at my heart strings. It wasn't a book filled with pink fuzzies and balloons. Picoult touched on the pain and anguish both families faced through the time of Emily's death until the end of Chris's murder trial. The pain was real, the characters were believable, the story was powerful. It's not a story you can just move on from in a blink of an eye. The Pact will stick with you for some time.

Eat Pray Love | Elizabeth Gilbert

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reissue edition (June 29, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143118420
ISBN-13: 978-0143118428

After countless nights of crying, alone on the bathroom floor Elizabeth Gilbert finally reaches out to God for help. She's depressed and no longer happy in her marriage. After a divorce and her new relationship falling apart she decides it's time to go and find herself, and heal. So, she plans a year long journey to visit Italy, India, and Indonesia. The memoir is about one woman's journey to heal her wounds and overcome depression.


First comes Italy where she begins to learn Italian eat delicious food, and meet new people who would later become like family to her. While in Italy she begins the process of letting go and finding happiness within, all the while devouring delicious Gelato and heaps of mouth watering spaghetti.

Next comes India where she visits an Ashram of her guru. This is where the healing / moving on / letting go process really begins. This section of the book is deep and emotional. She is forced to face her feelings head on and to change the way she handles things. Through meditation, and a new found friend Richard, she is able to open her heart and start letting go of the guilt, pain, and denial.

Finally comes Indonesia where Liz has all intentions of spending her time with a known medicine man. Turns out most of her time is spent with a man she wasn't prepared for. Indonesia is where Liz learns to love again. Reluctant to love again Liz tries everything to not fall in love, the more she tries the harder she falls. She learns a lesson in life; you can't stop love. Also during her time in Indonesia, Liz meets a woman who is a healer. Unheard of in Indonesia, this woman is divorced, has a little girl, and is barely making ends meet. When Liz finds out the woman's situation she takes action, raising enough money to build the woman a home.

Eat Pray Love isn't the best book I've ever read, but none the less it is a memoir worth reading. After reading this book I went and seen the movie as well. The movie just didn't do this book any justice in my opinion. It was a good movie but it could have been better. Don't get me wrong Julia Roberts was PERFECT, but they left out so much from the book. In my opinion way too much. With that being said I'd like to say that Eat Pray Love and I had a connection. I felt for this woman. I felt her struggles, her pain, her reluctance to let go. It can be so hard when your heart is so broke. I admired that she hung in there, that she fought to heal herself, that she was able to finally love despite everything. She was brave, and so determined to be better for no one else but herself. That takes a lot of courage. Elizabeth Gilbert's journey is inspiring, and enjoyable but not without flaws. I think I have a love hate relationship with this memoir.