Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult a book review

Our book club just read Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult.

She has an interesting theme in her books of tackling an environmental or social issue through her story. In Leaving Time, Picoult spends a lot of time discussing elephants and their emotional responses to their environment, specifically grief.

She accomplishes this by creating a character whose job it is to study elephants and their emotional responses.

One thing that really sticks out in this novel for me is the Point Of View changes. They seem to be a common technique among contemporary writers, but I find them aggravating as a reader. They make the whole book FEEL like fiction.

Character viewpoint changes force me as a reader to do extra mental work of keeping up with who's talking when. I want the author to do that work for me, so I can benefit from the enjoyment of being drawn into the imaginary time and place and just enjoy the story.

Fiction shouldn't be so hard.

Picoult is not the first author I've read that does this, but it is very frequent in Leaving Time.

As to this specific novel, there is a lot of spirit/ghost/reincarnation conjecture presented as truth, right alongside the scientific information about elephants. One being so far-fetched makes me wonder if the facts about the elephants are real or made up. I don't know enough about this author to know how she does her research.

The changing Point of View combined with the presentation of the Netherworld come together in the end to bring about a surprise ending to the book, which I won't give away here at all, except to say that everyone in our group was not expecting it to end the way it did, and you probably won't expect it either.

Even though, in the end, I did see the benefit of the techniques she used and how it brought the story all together, I did not enjoy the journey.

So, if you like to read for literary analysis, or because you promised your book club that you would, there is an ending that will give you something to talk about. But, if you like a novel simply for the pleasure of it, I can't recommend Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult.