Book Review: Plain Truth

Or should I say author review?

I love books. I love my books to have a happy ending, which is why I don't understand why my favorite author is Jodi Picoult. Maybe this is why:

"These are some of the things I’ve done in the name of research: Watched Sly Stallone on a movie set (for Picture Perfect); observed cardiac surgery (Harvesting the Heart); gone to jail for the day (The Pact); milked cows on an Amish dairy farm (Plain Truth); learned Wiccan love spells and DNA testing procedures (Salem Falls); explored bone marrow transplants (Perfect Match); gone ghost hunting (Second Glance). For Vanishing Acts, I spent time in a hardcore Arizona jail, and met with both detention officers and inmates (learning, among other things, how to make my own zip gun and the recipe for crystal meth); and went to the Hopi reservation to attend their private katsina dances. For The Tenth Circle, I trekked to the Alaskan tundra to visit a remote Eskimo village and to follow a dogsled race on a snowmobile – in January, when it was -38 degrees Fahrenheit. For my upcoming novel, LONE WOLF, I spent time with a man who lived in the wild with a wolf pack for a year – and got to meet some other wolves he has in captivity. " -Jodi Picoult

I love how much research she puts into her writing. Not only that, but she always adds something interesting that doesn't have to be there, and she expands on it: whale watching, an apple farm, astronomy, lost religion. She doesn't just mention them, she gives details, and incorporates them into the story. I have never seen another author do it so well.

I have read 7 of her 18 books: The Pact, My Sister's Keeper, Picture Perfect, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, Songs of the Humpback Whale, and Plain Truth. Does that show you how much I love her writing?

I'm lucky that I picked up The Pact first. It is a tragic love story that was so haunting I couldn't put it down. (It is still my second favorite book today, behind Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte) It also made me want to pick up another one of her books, and another.. I'm also lucky because if I would have been recommended Jodi Picoult, and not The Pact, my logical mind probably would have picked up the first book she ever wrote since I like to do things in order, which was Songs of the Humpback Whale. I was not a fan; I found it awkward; and I also discovered later that she was very inaccurate with her research. However, that is the only one so far I would not recommend.

In Plain Truth, a dead infant is discovered in an Amish barn, and evidence leads to an 18-year-old unwed Amish woman named Katie Fisher. When Ellie Hathaway, a big-city attorney, takes on her case, there is a collision of cultures- the "plain" way and the American system of justice.

I give this book four stars out of 5. I def recommend it!