A Google user
This book is a very emotional presentation about a patient’s right to life. It is reminiscent of the Terry Schiavo case. Many questions are raised. Who gets to decide whether or not to turn off the machines that are keeping the person alive? Who gets to decide whether organs are to be donated? What if the closest person to the injured is under age? What if the family is not functional, but ripe with anger and petty differences, jealousies and old grudges? Is it fair to put the burden upon one person's shoulders? Should anyone have the right to determine when the quality of life is not worthy enough to sustain it? How do we know it won’t be a decision that is based on mercenary concerns, rather than the peace and comfort of the patient? Should this decision be left to the courts? Miracles have been known to happen. Who gets to play G-d?
Luke Warren has gained fame by infiltrating a pack of wolves and becoming one of them. He ate with them, hunted with them, slept with them, and trusted them, and they in turn accepted him as one of their pack. He remained in the wild for about two years, and when he emerged back into civilization, the adjustment to normal life was challenging for him. His own family life disintegrated. He was more comfortable with wolves than humans. His son Edward left home with no forwarding address after a disagreement with him. His wife left him and remarried. His daughter Cara eventually chose to live with both of them at various times.
When Luke and Cara are involved in a catastrophic automobile accident, under questionable circumstances, he is left with a traumatic brain injury. There is little hope for his recovery. The ensuing family conflicts comprise most of the rest of the story as the family must decide whether or not to keep him alive on life support or discontinue it and pull the plug.
As Picoult builds her story by comparing and contrasting the way wolves and humans choose to live and die, as she compares their lifestyles and choices, their methods of survival and parenting, she seems to have overreached. The story begins to lose credibility as the thread of the tale becomes confused with facts that do not seem credible and characters that are difficult to like or to identify with are developed. They seem selfish and thoughtless. Cara is an almost 18 year old who behaves like a spoiled brat. She wants to be treated like an adult but refuses to act like one. Her mom seems too involved in her new life to notice the effect of all the changes on Cara. Luke, her dad, was a misfit preferring to live with wolves rather than humans, putting them before his own family. Her brother, Edward, ran away shortly after his 18th birthday, taking many catastrophic secrets with him, and he did not bother to reconnect with his family until he was called back when tragedy struck and the father, from whom he had been estranged, along with the rest of the family, was gravely injured. His sexual identity is a main theme of the story and yet it has really no impact and serves only to misdirect the reader in terms of the plot.
The best part of the book is probably the legal drama, but even that leaves a lot to be desired with the choice to include a lawyer who communicates with dead pets and dresses like Elephaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in The Wizard of Oz, and another lawyer who is motivated by political aspirations rather than legality. I can’t imagine what Picoult was thinking when she included such ridiculous characters in the discussion of such a serious subject. It diminishes the importance of the message. Yes, it is nice to accept all people, regardless of their foibles, but sometimes, it is unnecessary to simply include them in the interest of political correctness.
This novel is not up to the quality of the author's past novels, for which she is known for her meticulous research and presentation of facts. In this one she has clouded the message by attempting to cover too many issues. She has included family dysfunction and conflict, divorce, secrets, jealousy, inappropriate
A Google user
I have read a few Jodi Picoult books, some that I loved and some that still keep me on a fence. I started on the fence this one, but I slowly but surely moved to liking this one. She used her signature move attacking a serious subject with a court case from each character's perspective. The issue involved in this book is when is a life over medically/spiritually and who has the authority to make that call.
From the beginning you meet Cara, a young 17 year-old who has been in an accident with her father. Throughout the book you discover family secrets that have been hidden for years and the many reasons why this family was torn apart. Underlying it all is the storyline about the father, Luke Warren who was a famous conservationist focusing on the wolf community. The reader learns about how wolves form their packs and what keeps their family units working so well, and even what humans could learn from them.
I enjoyed the many layers to the book and it didn't feel like the rest of her books which made it feel like a fresh and new Jodi Picoult book. I would recommend this book to die-hard fans and newcomers to the Picoult repertoire.