Author: Jodi Picoult
First Published: October 2012
Publisher: Emily Bestler Books/Atria
421 pages (hardcover)
First of all, bloggity-life-update stuff: It’s been an incredibly long time since I read a book and posted a review here! Hello, hello, I’ve returned! It’s been an embarrassing 6 or 7 months since I read a book (to completion — I have a few unfinished books lying around that I just didn’t get around to finishing). My previous post was about how busy I was settling into a new job/career, which I think I’ve most settled into now. Not to mention also preparing to move (first time homeowners, hooray!) So it’s been a crazy year all around, and I must confess, besides time constraints, I was also kind of getting a little bored of reading. I know, what a terrible thing to admit to on a book blog! I was exploring some new hobbies (fishkeeping) and also rekindling my passion for old ones (video games), so reading just kind of … dropped off the radar for a long time. I was also reading a lot of one genre, mainly fantasy and historical fiction on royalty, so I was feeling quite burned out. All the books I picked up started to feel a tad too similar to one another. Guess you gotta branch out sometimes. Even though I love fantasy and historical fiction (or fantasy historical fiction, haha), I’ve realized it’s important to read other stuff too. Anyway, moving on to the review …
I need to catch up on Jodi Picoult books! This one is called Lone Wolf and it came out about 2-3 years ago. Like all of Picoult’s books, the dust cover summaries always sound kind of boring but I’ll try to make it a bit more interesting. Luke Warren is a renowned wolf expert who literally lived with wolves for two years in order to fully understand and study them. His extreme passion for wolves has, unfortunately, been a heated topic with his family, who feel he may love the animals more than them. He had divorced from his wife Georgie several years ago, at the same time his then-18 year old son Edward left home to become the estranged son. He lives in a trailer near his wolf conservation park (theme park thing?) with his daughter Cara (6 years younger than Edward) and his wife Georgie has since remarried lawyer Joe Ng and had twins. Presently, in the book, Cara is 17 (and 3/4 she will tell you!) and Edward is 23.
That’s the background. The story starts with a terrible accident in which Luke is driving his drunk daughter Cara home from a party she wasn’t supposed to be at when the truck smashes into a tree. Cara makes it out fairly alright, with a broken arm, bruised ribs and a concussion. Luke, on the other hand, is in a vegetative state, kept alive by a ventilator and a feeding tube. The whole family gather together immediately, daughter, ex-wife and estranged son, at his bedside but days pass and the prognosis is extremely grim. As his next-of-kin, Edward finds himself in a position to make medical decisions for his father, but his choice of whether to keep Luke alive via ventilator and tube feedings clash directly with Cara, who wants to keep him alive as long as possible. The family comes under extreme pressure as Cara is sure Edward is just looking for an excuse to kill their father, while Edward is sure Cara is too blinded by survivor’s guilt to grasp the reality of the situation.
What is it with Jodi Picoult’s books?! You start reading one and all of a sudden, you find yourself 100 pages in and it feels like only 5 minutes have passed. Her books always suck me in quickly, and Lone Wolf is no exception. In particular, dealing with the ethical and legal stuff that has to do with keeping patients alive through mechanical means is really interesting to me as a nurse (even though I’m aware this is all fictional). Maybe that’s why I liked the story so much. Also, because Jodi Picoult books always have to have some sort of legal battle going on, I love hearing both sides of the argument.
The downside is that in this book — for me, in any case — it was really clear which side had better arguments and I think this came down to the characters. Cara was extremely immature and I have no idea why anyone would entertain anything she says, especially as she was caught lying multiple times in the story. She was also bordering delusional with her great hope that her father would come back alive, and just didn’t seem to be able to grasp the consequences of her actions. For goodness’ sake, she tried to get her brother thrown in jail and when confronted, all she could say was that she wouldn’t have let anyone actually put him in jail, she’d just recant what she said if it got to that point. Seriously?! And here she is trying to prove to everyone she is mature enough to be appointed her father’s decision maker. Why anyone would even begin to think that’s a good idea is beyond me.
I ended up rooting for Edward to “win” just because I couldn’t stand the idea of Cara “winning’. Edward wasn’t a spectacularly built character either, but he was alright. Even though he was gone from the family for the last few years with extremely minimal contact, I didn’t believe he was trying to pull the plug on his father as an act of revenge, as Cara tries to tell everyone. Even though I think his reasons for running away from home in the first place are kind of overly dramatic for what it was, he played a good ‘tortured soul’ character in this novel and I ended up sympathizing a lot more with him than Cara.
Towards the end of the novel, I was beginning to become worried about what the result of the legal battle was going to be. Okay, so here’s the thing — every time I read a Jodi Picoult novel (or almost every time … every time I can remember, anyway), the ending has always been utter crap. I’d become angry and think, “Are you serious?!” because the legal battle(s) will usually end in such a way that I just cannot believe it. So I was thinking that the whole time and just bracing for some shitty ending like Luke magically regaining consciousness despite ALL the medical staff saying it’s pretty darn impossible due to damage to a very vital part of your brain. I really did not think a positive, “miracle” ending suited this story. I guess this is a spoiler, but I am glad the book ended the way I thought it should end, on a more realistic note.
My Rating: 5/5
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