Entry tags:
Leaving Time
by Jodi Picoult
This book made me cry during the first chapter while driving to work. I had to pause the book, wipe away the tears, understand what kind of book this was going to be, and be prepared for more tearful, or at least heart-wrenching, moments.
It's not that often you will come across a book like that.
It is an excellent book. It sometimes feels slow, but I think that's the result of being used to fast-paced movies as well as fast-paced books that I've been listening to, like Game of Thrones and Neil Gaiman books. For instance, Good Omens was a non-stop cluster hell (literally, since the whole plot of that book is to follow around demons on earth preparing to enact Revelations) with the sound of the Benny Hill theme just there on the edge of your mind during the bulk of it. So when I say Leaving Time has some slow passages, that's not to say it isn't good, just slow by comparison. I do have to say that the voice actress that read the mindset of Alice always read her passages pretty slowly, though, and there were many times when I hoped she would speed up the voicing pace. Then again, all of her thoughts were in the form of past-tense memoirs, so maybe there was a point to it to give it a bit of an "other-worldy" feel. I don't know.
The book has a really great twist ending, going through the whole thing wondering if Alice is alive or dead and what happened to her and her co-worker at the elephant sanctuary on that fateful night. As a secondary plan for the book, it's chocked full of explanations and descriptions of elephant cognition and emotions. THAT made it a very unexpected book, because it wasn't just about solving a murder/missing person mystery. I found so much interest in wanting to hear about the elephants, I would forget that there was a mystery afoot.
Now, back to book two of A Song of Ice and Fire (Games of Thrones, season 2), now that after 2 months on the waiting list for it I finally get to listen to it. Unfortunately, book 1 took 4 weeks and two check-outs to get through, and I can only hope I'll get through this one faster, as having to wait 2 more months to check it out again and finish it will drive me mad.
This book made me cry during the first chapter while driving to work. I had to pause the book, wipe away the tears, understand what kind of book this was going to be, and be prepared for more tearful, or at least heart-wrenching, moments.
It's not that often you will come across a book like that.
It is an excellent book. It sometimes feels slow, but I think that's the result of being used to fast-paced movies as well as fast-paced books that I've been listening to, like Game of Thrones and Neil Gaiman books. For instance, Good Omens was a non-stop cluster hell (literally, since the whole plot of that book is to follow around demons on earth preparing to enact Revelations) with the sound of the Benny Hill theme just there on the edge of your mind during the bulk of it. So when I say Leaving Time has some slow passages, that's not to say it isn't good, just slow by comparison. I do have to say that the voice actress that read the mindset of Alice always read her passages pretty slowly, though, and there were many times when I hoped she would speed up the voicing pace. Then again, all of her thoughts were in the form of past-tense memoirs, so maybe there was a point to it to give it a bit of an "other-worldy" feel. I don't know.
The book has a really great twist ending, going through the whole thing wondering if Alice is alive or dead and what happened to her and her co-worker at the elephant sanctuary on that fateful night. As a secondary plan for the book, it's chocked full of explanations and descriptions of elephant cognition and emotions. THAT made it a very unexpected book, because it wasn't just about solving a murder/missing person mystery. I found so much interest in wanting to hear about the elephants, I would forget that there was a mystery afoot.
Now, back to book two of A Song of Ice and Fire (Games of Thrones, season 2), now that after 2 months on the waiting list for it I finally get to listen to it. Unfortunately, book 1 took 4 weeks and two check-outs to get through, and I can only hope I'll get through this one faster, as having to wait 2 more months to check it out again and finish it will drive me mad.