Customer Reviews

Keeping Faith: A Novel

5 star:		(109)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Seven-year-old Faith is caught in the middle of her parents crumbling marriage and in much need of a friend to confide in. That is when her imaginary friend "Guard" steps in. Not long after, miracles start to occur around Faith, and this small town in New Hampshire starts to realize that Faith is not only speaking to "God", but that her God is a woman.

The faithful start to arrive on Faiths' doorstep in search of miracles; along with the media led by a card carrying atheist whose TV show thrives on disproving such hype. They are all found camping out, waiting to have a moment, or a word with Faith. In the mean time the custody battle between Faiths' parents flares up leaving her torn between them as well as more confused with each passing day. The complications heighten when this innocent child exhibits the bleeding hands of the stigmata, leaving the doctors completely baffled.

Jodi Picoult is an author that will keep you coming back for more and will easily make a fan out of you. She takes a story and makes you question it every turn of the page. Something that may appear to be blatantly true is transformed into the totally unexpected, you will find yourself doubting just about everyone in the book at one point or another.

I suggest another of this authors books if you haven't had enough, "THE PACT, A LOVE STORY" which is about a teen suicide, another great read. The end of every chapter leaves you wondering about the veracity of each characters statement. Sometimes she does it with just one word, turning your idea of things "head over heels" when you thought you had it all figured out. Picoult is a truly talented author and worth watching and reading, you will certainly be entertained.

In 380-ish pages that seem to turn themselves, Jodi Picoult makes readers stop and think about several issues as simple as mother-daughter relationships and as complex as God. Mariah White, for the second time in their marriage, catches her husband with another woman. The first time, she was pregnant with their daughter, Faith. The second time, Faith was with Mariah when Colin was caught in the act. The first time, Mariah tries to kill herself. The second time, Colin leaves and Faith's "Guard" shows up. The seven year old starts performing miracles, attracting media attention, develops stigmata and quotes the Bible, although she's never been subjected to it. Mariah tries to shield her daughter from the attention while trying to find out for sure what is wrong with her. The reader switches back and forth several times, wondering if Faith is seeing God or if her mother is seeking attention. The book ends with a custody battle between Colin and Mariah and the reader wondering how much "Faith" they really have and would have if in a similar circumstance. The book is filled with colorful characters, perhaps the best Mariah's hold-no-punches mother, Millie. A GREAT book that you won't put down, and won't forget after you do.

Mariah White catches her husband with another woman (the second time during their marriage), her 7 year old daughter, Faith, witnesses the whole ugly scene. Mariah goes into depression and Faith retreats to a world of silence until she begins talking to her "imaginary friend". Mariah has little concern about the "friend" until her daughter begins reciting passages from the Bible, performing miracles and experiencing stigmata.

Once the media hears of the little girl, they endlessly try to find out more, turning Mariah and her daughter's life upside-down.

Mariah tries to find out what is happening to her daughter as well as shelter her from the frenzy caused by the media.

Ian Fletcher is the newsman who broke the story about Faith and started out to expose her as a fraud. As he becomes involved with the White's, he begins believing that Faith may actually be God's messenger.

The novel has several different themes...religion, media, and child custody.

I have only read one other novel by Jodi Picoult, The Pact (excellent novel as well), but she is an auther whose talent is endless. She writes novels that are suspenseful, controversial, and powerful.

Everything about this book works, the characters, the pacing and the plot.

Jodi Picoult takes religion in her novel "Keeping Faith." Mariah White and her 7-year-old daughter Faith return home unexpectedly one afternoon and find Colin White, Mariah's husband and Faith's father, with another woman. Colin announces he is leaving Mariah for the other woman, and shortly thereafter, they divorce. Faith is particularly impacted by the divorce and she begins to speak to an imaginary friend that she calls her "Guard." Mariah doesn't think too much of it at first, but becomes worried and takes Faith to a psychologist. Over time, they come to realize that Faith's "Guard" is God. And God appears to Faith in a female form. The media swoops in on the story as soon as Faith performs her first miracle. She raises the dead. Then, she cures a baby who had AIDS. But Faith's visionary status takes a turn for the dramatic when the little girl begins to experience stigmata. Colin, thinking Mariah is somehow inflicting the stigmatic wounds upon Faith and that Faith is in danger, sues Mariah for custody of Faith.

This novel was tremendously intriguing and I would have been more than happy to give it a 5 star rating, if it had not been for the ending. Usually, Picoult answers any questions and ties up all the loose ends by the time the reader reaches the last page. I don't felt she did that in this book. I still had many questions that were left unanswered at the end of the novel, making me feel disappointed by it.

Overall, it was a great book and I would definitely recommend it.

As usual Jodi Picoult creates memorable characters and situations in this book. She explores the relationship between a mother, Mariah, and her daughter Faith, under extreme circumstances. At the beginning of the book, Mariah is very much in love with her husband Colin, despite the fact that he has been unfaithful to her and, at one point, has committed her to a mental hospital as the result of depression caused by his unfaithfulness. When she again discovers him with a woman, she goes into a tailspin and they divorce. About this time her daughter begins to spout scripture and relates coversations with God, who is a woman. When the girl begins working miracles, people flock to her in order to be healed. This unlikely scenario becomes even more complicated, as the girls' hands begin to bleed and the doctors cannot stop them. A custody battle ensues, and complications mount. Picoult's characters are believable, but the situations she puts them into are not, and this is what made the book less interesting to me. Hopefully, she will return to more realistic plots and will leave out the mystical aspects in future novels.

It's a pleasure for a reader to follow the development of style and substance of a writer. For me, reading each new work by this immensely talented author, has been a delight. KEEPING FAITH is the story of a seven-year-old girl who, suddenly, seems to see a "guard" (read god) that is invisible to all others. She seems to develop powers of healing that bring scores of people to camp on the lawn of her house (where she lives with her recently divorced, rather emotionally fragile mother). What ensues brings into play the exploitation of this child, the frenzy of the media with a "hot" story, with cameras and microphones at the ready, as well as actions and reactions from Faith's family - her mother (who needs a good shake for her wimpiness with her former husband) and Faith's feisty, gutsy grandmother. An interesting beautifully written book including a riveting court custody hearing and an ending that will keep you discussing the work long after you have completed it.

KEEPING FAITH by Jodi Picoult

This was my second book by Jodi Picoult, and I will definitely be reading more by her. As with THE PACT, KEEPING FAITH centered on a controversial topic, something that would be seen in today's headlines. In KEEPING FAITH, there are two themes - one of a family being torn apart by infidelity and divorce, and the other one centering on the child that is caught in the middle. But this is not any ordinary child custody story. What happens here is something that is only seen in Catholic history books and other religious literature: Seven-year-old Faith is discovered to have powers that are akin to miracles performed by Catholic saints.

Faith's news brings the media to their home town, everyone wanting to witness and spread the tale of this little girl who can bring back the dead, who is suffering from stigmata (spontaneous bleeding from the hands and feet), and can perform other miracles. Her mother Mariah is trying her best to deal with this plus deal with her broken marriage. With the help of her mother, Mariah tries to make sense of what is happening. When her ex-husband Colin finds out what is happening to Faith, he uses this to point fingers at Mariah, telling the world she is causing her own daughter to suffer and become a media circus. He files for custody, when only a few months ago he had walked out the door, not bothering to look back. Faith is torn between her two parents, and at the same time finds herself in the middle of this mystery about herself, not knowing why she is able to do what she does.

KEEPING FAITH is a riveting, complex story that will keep the reader interested till the very end. It is what I definitely call a page-turner. Highly recommended!

As an avid Jodi Picoult fan, I was sorely disappointed by this novel. Normally, I can't put down her books while reading them, but by the middle of this one, I was only reading it so that I could finally finish it and move on to something else. It was unengaging at best, and just plain boring at worst. KEEPING FAITH tells the story of a young girl who has a special relationship with God. Page after page, Faith talks to God, Faith performs a miracle, Faith talks to God some more, Faith performs some more miracles, and ooh wow Faith knows things that she couldn't possibly know so it must be real! Not much else happened, save a custody battle toward the end, which was the only aspect of the book I actually found to be engaging. One of the frustrating things was that there wasn't much of a plot to this book. Essentially, after the first twenty pages or so, the plot is pretty stagnant up until the denouement, but the characters are all unsatisfied with things, and then post-exciting climactic stuff, things essentially return to exactly they were before, and that's the end.

One of Jodi Picoult's trademarks are her twist endings, which are often
aren't unexpected, but there was not one single thing about this novel that wasn't completely and utterly predictable. Insecure, self-loathing mother Mariah ends up falling for the "bad boy" atheist Ian. Shock. The worst thing about their relationship was that despite the fact that it was inevitable from before the two characters even laid eyes on one another, Picoult didn't bother to actually develop it. I'm normally a big fan of the bad boy type, and of relationships in which the bad boy falls for someone and finally opens up, but this didn't really happen here. Ian's a jerk one day, then sees Mariah and thinks she looks like an angel and suddenly he's a saint! His insomnia is also instantly cured by her radiant beauty! They're in love and want to live happily ever after, and of course along the way they manage to completely change each other's personalities for the better as well. This takes place over the course of a week or so, naturally.

Nothing is more annoying to me in literature than relationships that aren't developed properly, and while we're on the topic of things that are annoying about this book, let's look at a few other things that just don't quite add up. It seems just a tad unfeasible to me how everyone immediately jumps on the bandwagon and thinks Faith is telling the truth and how much of a celebrity she becomes. If this happened in reality, the only media source covering it would be The National Enquirer. "Hollywood Tonight" would not be covering the story unless Faith decided to sacrifice Paris Hilton to her God, and they certainly wouldn't be camped out on her family's lawn for months at a time. A final note of frustration was the fact that for no apparent reason, the point of view keeps inexplicably switching from first person to third person, which is just jarring enough to throw the reader back out of the story and confusing because it really doesn't seem to serve any purpose. By the end of this novel I was just left wondering what the point of it was.

I was very anxious to read this book, having heard over and over again what a great writer Jodi Picoult was. I must say, if this was not a book club read, I would have abandoned it. However, I plugged through it, hopeful that the characters would somehow become more likeable and the strange story lines would be tied up. Instead it just got worse. Does Picoult really think that her audience is so stupid? How predictable was it that Ian "the bad boy" would end up with poor victimized Mariah, whose child was inexplicably touched by God? How was it that all these brilliant attorneys and such never heard of the child abuse where the mother harms the child as an attention getting device? Haven't they ever watched 20/20 or read People magazine? The Catholic Church's involvement with this case was laughable; I definitely don't think Picoult is a Catholic. And what of all those people gathering around outside Faith's house, and coverage by "Hollywood Tonight". Unless Lindsay Lohan develops stigmata, this would never happen. I never could figure out why Ian was hiding his brother; was there something to be ashamed of there? The custody battle just lengthened an already tiring story. Did Picoult really think she was delivering some kind of thought provoking spiritual message? To me, everything was so obvious, it was really kind of stupid.

I have now read three books by Jodi Picoult, and this is my favorite. It really raises some interesting questions about God, faith and religon. 7-year old Faith White starts seeing God and healing people after she witnesses her father in bed with another woman,which of course is very hard on both she and her mother. This book had a very interesting plot intersected with some equally as interesting sub-plots. Ms. Picoult does a wonderful job also of creating a cast of rich, unforgettable characters that totally engross the reader. The only reason I gave this book 4 stars is that there are times when the point of view changes from that of the mother to an omniscient one, but even that doesn't really detract from the wonderful qualities of this book.