August's challenge was to read a non romance genre book. This wasn't really a difficult thing for me to do because I will read (or at least try to read) pretty much any genre.
The Pact: a love story by Jodi Picoult Now the title says it's a love story ... and it is. It's an incredibly heart wrenching love story. It isn't, however, a romance. There is no happily ever after.
From the back cover "For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty - they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends - so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born.
So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet - a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described. As its chapters unfold, alternating between an idyllic past and an unthinkable present, "The Pact" paints an indelible portrait of families in anguish... culminating in an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris finds himself on trial for murder."
Even a couple of weeks after I finished this story it's difficult for me to find words that express how much this novel touched my heart.
Something I found incredibly interesting about this book was The Pact ended up being a banned book! You can listen to Ms. Picoult talk about this in a podcast here if you click on the Big Brother link.
This book is definitely a keeper. I'll also be looking for more novels by Jodi Piccoult. She is an amazing writer.
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