Jodi Picoult is one of my favourite authors to date. Each of her books has left an impression on me however so far, “Leaving Time” is the winner.
From reading the blurb I believed that this book was about a girl in search of her missing mother. This is true to a degree and I don’t feel inclined to give too much away. However, key characters such as Serenity Jones and Virgil Stanhope create major friendships within the novel. In her typical form of writing, Picoult uses a variety of perspectives to tell her story and of her true fashion, there has been so much research involved. As well as the humans within the story, there are also animals. The girl, Jenna, who is looking for her mother, Alice, has grown up on an elephant sanctuary and Alice is researching how elephants grieve. The elephants play a crucial role in the novel as their behaviours reflect that of people.
Another one of Picoult’s usual styles of writing is to deliver a plot twist at the end of her novels, this is certainly delivered in “Leaving Time”. The plot twist has left an impression on me like no other novel has done so before. I feel as though I have learned a valuable lesson from this book. We should appreciate and value the things we have in this life, we should show more kindness to those who are with us now before it is too late. Also, I think that Serenity Jones’ role in the novel highlights how we need to be patient and how everything happens for a reason.
I would also encourage the readers of this book to keep reading even though it does take the first hundred pages to really get into it. However, I would argue that the tedious beginning is made up for with the remarkable ending.
So many words and passages within this book have stuck with me. One of the key things being that Mothers and daughters always stay together. Another being that a possible purpose of life is to be happy and not inflict pain on others. Finally, how animals are as capable of emotion as people and that they deserve more credit than they achieve.
This book is remarkable and I am envious of how Picoult can write such an incredible, imaginative and heart-wrenching novel. The book has also been written from the highest degree of research which makes it even more interesting and realistic.
“Leaving Time” has left me with so much to think about and I will definitely miss the characters. I am now looking forward to reading my next Jodi Picoult book.
I would like to rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.
