Customer Reviews

Perfect Match

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I have to preface this by saying that anyone who has not read many of Picoult's works might love this book. But having read almost all of her books the minute they were released, I was sorely disappointed by this one.

The writing, as always, is eloquent, gripping and excellent. However, this book follows the same sequence she has used in her past few books. And it has become too formulary for me. It is almost as if her editors are pressuring her to get the books out so she follows a similar style for all of them. And although each story is different, they read the same after a while. A plot develops at the beginning with a life changing event, there is a court case, and then a surprise at the end.

This particular book lost its appeal to me as soon as a Priest was drawn in to the mix. Having been prevalent in the news of late -- reading about church scandals is hardly something I wanted to do for pleasure. Perhaps that was a part of the problem. The subject is worn down.

That said, Picoult is amazingly talented, there is no doubt about it. And I will read all of her books that follow because I have faith that she will work originality back into her writing. The character development is fantastic, as is the dialogue and writing, but its the story lines that all develop similarly regardless of how different they initially seem.

Plain Truth, Keeping Faith, Harvesting the Heart and The Pact are four of my all time favorite books. And I cannot wait to add another of hers to that list.

I couldn't put this one down. It is one of Jodi Picoults's best books yet.

It concerns sexual abuse of a 5 year old boy. The mother, Nina, is a prosecuter by profession and is trying to put away these child molesters all the time. She knows how difficult this can be. When her husband and her find out her son is a victim you find out how this can tear a family apart.

The book goes into how each parent, Nina the mother and Caleb the father cope. Plus, you go into the mind of Nicholas, the young boy, and how he is dealing with his world during this time.

This is a very taut and suspensful story with a lot of twists and turns. I found myself admiring and loathing Nina all at the same time yet feeling nothing but deep concern for Caleb and Nicholas.

This is a very good book with a great ending!!!!!

I always look forward to reading a book by Jodi Picoult. Unfortunately, Perfect Match left a rather bitter taste in my mouthand will be one Picoult book I won't recommend. This book by an authorknown for her heart wrenching and thought provoking books, in my opinion, missed its mark. The basic story involves one tragedy compounded by another tragedy. And a main character, an assistant district attorney that added up to some predictability and rather unlikely courtroom scenes. Even a last minute twist didn't make up for a book I could have skipped.

Previous to reading Perfect Match,I read Picoult's books The Pact, Keeping Faith and Plain Truth. For those interested in reading this author, who has always impressed me before,these are worthwhile titles to read and savor. Because I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this author in the past, I now look forward to reading some of her older titles I missed and her new book due out shortly, Second Glance.

For me this book started slower than her others, but I knew if I kept on it would get much better as it did. I really identified with Nina as I am a mother of a boy and Catholic. I can't imagine how that would feel, however I don't think I would take the action she did. I do love the twists regarding the Maine Law and the DNA. I would recommend this to a friend

This is the fourth book I've read by Jodi Picoult and it may be my last. The first was My Sister's Keeper which I adored and I became a fan. Jodi Picoult is a very talented writer and I was intrigued by the premise of Perfect Match.

The story began with so much promise that this would be another emotional rollercoaster full of twists and turns. However, I got an early impression that the author's sympathies were heavily with the main character Nina and that everything would come out well for her in the end. But then I thought surely not; Jodi is going to pull out one of her surprises at the end.

I found Nina to be self-serving and unsympathetic. Like others, I found Patrick to be pathetic and creepy and thought it unrealistic that Caleb would allow him to be so much "a part of the family." And Jodi should have stayed away from trying to communicate Nathaniel's viewpoint... she clearly can't express the thoughts of a 5-year old.

And then came the ending that I was anticipating, the totally la-la land happy ending that has nothing to do with what would happen in the real world. **SPOILER ALERT** You cannot make me believe that there is a judge... anywhere...that would acquit on this flaky "mommy" defense even if the guy she killed was guilty of molesting her son.... and this guy was innocent! I was appalled. And then to top it off, Nina finds Caleb's bag with the antifreeze in it which proved he was the one to kill the real molester. Was anyone really THAT surprised (or cared, for that matter)? How convenient, how "sweet" and "justified" that both parents were willing to kill to protect their son. What an awful message this sends.

Time will tell if I pick up another of her books, but I doubt that I will.

I am a huge fan of Jodi Picoult's books and have probably read about six or seven of them. I would have to say that this is probably my least favorite of her books that I have read so far. Although it wasn't the best, it was still a good read.

My main dislike of this book was the main character, Nina. Similar to the mother in Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper," she was just cold and unlikeable to me. I really didn't care what happened to her. I just wanted her son and husband to be okay.

I would still recommend it, but if you haven't read her other books, read those first!!

I will start by noting the positive aspects of this book. First, it challenges the reader to ponder the boundaries of our own behaviour; to ask what it might take for us to do the "unthinkable", whether that be shooting a person accused of child molestation, or carrying on an inappropriate relationship with our married best friend. Second, for all its issues, I thought the novel was a page turner; it was well written, and I was eager to know how the story would be resolved.

However, there are a number of major issues with this book that bring it down to a two-star rating for me.

First, while the novel was engaging, I thought the story arc was complicated by an ever-growing cast of bit players and extras whose stories were neither interesting nor well developed. For instance, in the second half of the novel, we are told about Quentin's interactions with former wife Tanya and son Gideon. I'm not sure why we are meant to be interested in Quentin's private life. To the extent that we are meant to be interested, this story seemed to be resolved in the absence of any real character development. I don't think think these aspects of the book added to the story; if anything, they were a distraction from its central narratives.

The second big problem is that the lead character of Nina is very difficult to like or even empathise with. She comes across as a calculating lawyer who believes she is "bigger than the law", and who takes advantage of her experience and insider knowledge to play the system, and seek to avoid the usual justice that would be dispensed for committing murder. The reader knows from the top that Nina shoots the man accused of abusing her son; when this happens at this man's arraignment, however, and before DNA evidence had even been tendered, I felt the credibility of the story drop a notch or two. Sadly, the trajectory continued on this downward trend for the remainder of the novel, and particularly at the end.

This brings me to my final point: **SPOILER ALERT**

I 100%, without a doubt, hated the ending. The decision the judge handed down said that a provocation-style defence was available to Nina, with the result that she was guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter. Then, as if to say that killing innocent religious leaders is okay if you're the mother of an abused child, he suspended the remaining portion of her 20 year sentence. What that decision is basically saying is that vigilante justice is acceptable. I find this aspect of the novel deeply disturbing and legally absurd, because I cannot imagine any judge coming to this conclusion, and even if he or she did, the prosecutor would appeal it. Then to add insult to injury, we find out that Caleb also killed a priest (admittedly the right one), again with no apparent guilt or remorse.

In the space of a few pages, the novel takes the reader from the tension of Nina's verdict, to a seemingly happy life of Lego, laundry and cooking maple syrup from scratch. And yet for me, this was where the story began: can you really expect to kill two people in cold blood, and for life to be happy ever after?

I've read most of picoults novels..to me she has great plots but very corny descrpitions of emotions and often un believable characters.

"Perfect Match" started with an interesting and realistic premise.. child sexual abuse , the legal system and the church.
However, about 100 pages in it went off the rails....

I know im in the minority with this opinion

The story develops smoothly, the writing is good (if sometimes overblown), and the characters are, for the most part, well-developed. The scenes written from the viewpoint of the abused child are particularly well done - showing the confusion and guilt and longing for family the child feels. To my mind, the protagonist's character was the least believable. The book drew me in from the start and kept me in the story the whole way. But it also doesn't ring true in many respects and left me with a bad taste by rejoicing in the murder of an innocent man because the killer's motive's were "well intentioned." It seemed to me the author had written herself into a hole and didn't know how to get out and so contrived the uneasy but supposedly feel-good ending.

Assistant District Attorney Nina Frost has seen the pain and humiliation children go through when they are sexually abused. She has tried - and won - many cases. Never in a million years did she expect to be on the other side of a child abuse case, but when her five-year-old son, Nathaniel, suddenly stops talking one day, it is discovered - through therapy and medical examination - that he has been sexually molested. Through sign language, Nathaniel is able to identify his abuser as the family priest, and Nina finds her life turned even more upside down. Faced with an attorney's knowledge of how sex abuse cases often turn out, Nina does the unthinkable and takes the law into her own hands.

Since 1992, with her debut of Songs of the Humpback Whale, Jodi Picoult has written a string of gripping novels about the gray areas of life. She portrays both sides of a story without pointing a finger at once side and labeling it as "bad." Her characters are engaging, complicated, and realistically flawed. In Perfect Match, Jodi Picoult takes a story that has dominated the headlines recently and gives it an altogether different spin. The things left unsaid in the story encourage the reader to think and question just exactly what is right and what is wrong. The courtroom scenes, as in all of Picoult's past novels, are well-written - realistic, but never boring.

Perfect Match keeps you guessing to the very last page, and leaves you gasping in surprise.