Half Way There! ~ Plain Truth

Don't we all get to a point in an incredible book when we think to ourselves and realise, "Oh my gosh, it's almost over!"? From there, we begin to dread the end of story. I think I'm at that point.

Yes, I realise I'm behind, and yes, I regretting getting that far behind, but I'm really enjoying my book at the moment. It took me a while to get really into it because I had a lot going on and was a little stressed out, but now that I am into the story, I don't want to stop reading. It's a struggle for me to do this blogpost right now because I want more than anything to keep reading.

So far the story is basically about an Amish girl, Katie, who had a baby out of wedlock. The baby was killed by someone (we still don't know who) the same night of its birth. Katie has a distant cousin, Ellie, related to her through marriage, that is a defense attorney (Katie and Ellie had not met prior to the incident). Ellie stands up and takes the place of Katie's lawyer when fingers start pointing to Katie as the murderer. The story shifts between the past and present, explaining the ways Katie has escaped from her Amish culture at times to become someone she's not. As Ellie attempts to unravel the truth of the case, we are shown different sides of Katie, not knowing which of them to trust.

At this point, I'm so intrigued with the book I just want to skip to the end and find out who did it. But I won't. I have thoughts of Oh maybe he did! Or maybe it was her! And the way Jodi Picoult writes, you can tell she's trying to leave you with untied ends so you're trying to solve the puzzle, too. I love the way the story is written so that it's almost a whodunit and the reader is attempting to solve the crime and protect Katie just as Ellie is.

There's a very popular quote from this book that reads, "A world that was crowded with people could still be a very lonely place." It's written in a section of the story so that it's made to seem like it's directed towards Katie's life as an Amish woman who sometimes desperately wants to be understood as a  normal teenage girl. Although Katie does have time of doubt about her Amish culture, she is characterized as being someone who cares deeply about her religion and would never turn her back on the church. It makes her a very interesting character to learn about as you read because you're always thinking, "How could someone with such strong religious ties and morals ever think to do something as awful as murdering her own baby?"

The above quote ("A world that was crowded...") also applies very well to Ellie. She lives in the busy city of Philadelphia and works as a very powerful, very successful defense attorney. At the start of the story, before she met Katie, her life was all about her work. Living with Katie and learning about a life with family and passion, Ellie is brought back down to earth and is able to notice what's around her. Although she's still working on a case, Ellie realises she is surrounded by people that don't make her feel lonely like the people she worked with. Living with and helping Katie not only teaches Ellie about the Amish world, it also teaches Ellie about herself.

I really enjoy the way Jodi Picoult writes her books. She always writes between the past and the present and shifts back and forth from different narrators. This is still the case in Plain Truth. So far in the story, Ellie has been narrating in first person, and we've also seen the story told by an outside narrator through third person omniscient. I enjoy the different points of view becasue it helps to understand every character, but I especially like that at times the story is focused on Ellie.

Okay, sorry, that was really long, but I really just wanted to talk about the book for a while because I'm enjoying it so much and sometimes I just need to vent about how great it is. I would definitely recommend it at this point!
Be glad you didn't have to listen to me ramble on and on about this in person, because that would have been a lot more annoying. I'll be back soon to review the book when I finish it, which will be soon!!

~Jenna