Makes you think, makes you angry, makes you sad 2010-09-04

Reviewer: Marla M

I loved this book! I was reading through the reviews and I couldn't believe how many people didn't like the book. It's not a happy book, but it makes you think. Makes you think Really Hard about what you could do for Mercy. It has characters that make you angry. It takes an incredible author to make you so angry at a character that you want to slam the book down. I thought this was an incredible book.

very dissapointing- characters and plot too far fetched to believe 2010-08-27

Reviewer: Karen Rode

I have very much liked several Jodi Piccoult books. But I am not even sure I can finish this one. A woman who is in the last stages of terminal cancer, making intense passionate love, and jitterbugging the night away on her last night of life??? As a nurse who has seen many terminal patients, let me tell you that does NOT happen anywhere in real life! The intensity of the "love at first sight" sub plot between the police chief and his wife's assistant was also a yawn. All the characters are flat, 2 dimensional, and totally unbelievable as real people. This is one of the worst books I have read in a long time.

Mercy takes no Mercy 2010-08-14

Reviewer: Windsurfing-lindz

How long after reading Mercy will it be before I begin to start feeling less attached to the main characters? Every Jodi Picoult book I have ever read has entwined its stroy line around my heart and every time I have felt a subtle connection to the plot.
The story captivates the way love should be just perfectly. The intense relationship depicted between all the characters was not overly intense but just true to real life, no exhaggeration and just total honesty.
After my dad was diognosed with Cancer, I always found it difficult to interact with the term, "cancer". Jodi picoult is the only way I can vent the way it has changed my life and made me feel. Several of her books (mercy being one of them) have demonstrated the catastrophic ways in which it effects a persons life, whether they are suffering or not.
Mercy has several story lines, Allie and Cam are a married couple, where it is clear that Allie carries the torch much higher for Cam than he seems to for her. It shows the twists and curves of their relationship as Cam finds himself in bed with another woman and falling in love. The constant comparisons that ca be made and the emotions that can be linked to effortlessly to how so many people must feel on a day to day basis when waking up next to their loved ones is uncanny.
This appears to be the secondary story line to the murder of Maggie, who was married to Cams cousin Jamie. She had been fighting a loosing battle to cancer when she asked Jamie to kill her.
The writing is of a beauty I simply can not put to words. On so many occasions whilst readin i felt myself fighting back tears and reminding myself it was a fictional story. The descriptions of the passion that Jamie felt for maggie and the vivid descriptions of others reactions to their relationships trapped me into a feeling of closeness that is lmost impossible to break away from even after finishing the novel. I found myself grieving or the death of Maggie and, in some ways, feeling attached to Jamie and as if it was my duty to help him relieve his own feels.

It is a truely inspirational and increible novel. There are no words to sum up the range of emotions it can create within ones heart and I truelly recommend giving it a read.

Disappointing. 2010-07-13

Reviewer: gidget626

I have never disliked Picoult's characters so passionately as the ones in Mercy. Not one character had a saving grace, and I cannot stomach quite a few. I usually buy Picoult books at thrift shops and such for about $3; this is the first I've bought for full-price (an impulse buy at a bookstore, because I've never had a bad experience with a Picoult book before. In fact, I consider myself quite a fan), and I regret that.

I detest Cameron MacDonald and his mistress, Mia. I have never come across two literary characters who were more distasteful, but Cameron takes the cake in the Most Despicable Characters hall of infamy. I felt terribly for Allie and wished she had had a different reaction to her husband's infidelity, one that would've made Cam wake up. Normally, I can forgive a few unsavory characters in a novel if there are some redeeming qualities either about the unlikable characters or the novel itself. "Mercy" has neither. It also lacks likable characters altogether.

Allie may have been an unobjectionable character if she wasn't such a doormat. I don't think she's walked all over in some respects - she runs her own business, takes initiative in helping Jamie, her husband's cousin, and so on - but she lets her husband trample all over her.

Overall, while the plot was predictable in a way (Mia was introduced as a character early in the novel and Cameron was attracted to her almost immediately because of the color of her eyes; Allie was introduced off the bat as a doormat; Jamie rolled right into town with his dead wife in the car and announced he killed her. Take your pick), there were some aspects that weren't fleshed out, or were messy. There were hints of supernatural subplots that would've been interesting if they were developed, and several others, but they were introduced subtly and then left to hang. The ball never gets rolling, and it's tedious to get through the half-way point of the book, should you even make it that far without losing interest.

If you're a Picoult fan, I don't recommend this book. It is certainly not her finest. Half of the book is repeated scenes, predominantly sex scenes that boring and stale. I never got very involved in the plot, the characters repulsed me, and I won't be rereading it. I'm very glad that I didn't spend an extravagant amount of time poring over this novel, because it was a waste of time, quite frankly. Truly one of the worst books I've read.

Very Thought Provolking 2010-07-09

Reviewer: D. Rogers

This is the first book that I have read by Jodi Picoult. I read the first chapter of the book in Book Daily. I got the book soon after because I had to know how this book ended. It was a very good book. It brought up a lot of questions about trust, loyalty and mercy.