Change of Heart
By Jodi Picoult
441 pages
Page size 6x9 ½
Atria Books
Prologue begins on page 1
Just a quick note from what I saw when I opened the book. The paper used is thin. So? So you can see the words on the page underneath. This can make it difficult to read sometimes. It’s a matter of taste. I don’t like it. But that’s me.
Page 1
The second sentence of the book, imagine that? It just needs to be reworded or broken up into two sentences. The problem is that there is too many words that break up the thought. You’ll see what I mean.
How else could I account for the fact that years ago, right after the accident - when the smoke cleared and the car had stopped tumbling end over end to rest upside down in a ditch - I was still alive; I could hear Elizabeth, my little girl, crying?
Why not cook that down to: How else could I account for the fact that I was still alive after the accident? The other stuff could be explained in time.
Page 3 (end of prologue)
So far she’s using very short sentences that cause a laundry list effect. I hope this doesn’t keep up. The “Dick and Jane” style is good but only in short spurts.
Page 5
In that instant, he glanced at me, and I realized two things:
1. He was terrified.
2. He was approximately the same age that I was.
This technique absolutely blows. Why do this? This is a novel not a goddam inter-office memo. Plus, reverse the order of these and make it more dramatic. This isn’t writing.
He resembled the deliveryman from the pizza place that had a thin crust, the kind I like.
The pizza place had a thin crust? I wonder what happened when it rained hard. Did the roof and walls leak? Did it begin to melt? Either way, “…that had a thin crust, the kind I like,” are useless words. No need for them. Especially when they state the pizza place had a thin crust and not the pizza.
Page 6
A month later, I could tell you that serving on a jury is nothing like you see on TV. There was a lot of being paraded back and forth between the courtroom and the jury room; there was bad food from a local deli for lunch; there were lawyers who liked to hear themselves talk, and …
And there are three expletives in that second sentence. She needs to WRITE this. This is pure laziness.
The bailiff would parade us back and forth between the courtroom and the jury room often; we ate bad food from a local deli for lunch; the lawyers loved to hear themselves talk, and…
Page 24
…because it was the last vacation I’d taken with Adam.
Don’t know who Adam is. Why not tell me?
Page 25
The book has reached “this is a bit much” status. A woman named June lost her husband in a car accident when her daughter was only two. She re-marries (the cop who helped her after the accident) and gets pregnant. Before the baby is born, her new husband and daughter, no 7, are murdered. Eleven years after the murder, her daughter (the baby she was pregnant with from her second husband) now 11, needs a new heart. I know this is fiction but give me a break. She’s laying it on a little too thick for me.
Page 63
When the priest stopped speaking - I didn’t listen to a word of it;
I do the same thing. She’s a genius writer. She captured that perfectly. I do the same thing when someone stops speaking. I don’t listen to a word of it either.
Page 64
They looked the way I wish I could: smooth and clear and peaceful, a pond with a stone unthrown.
I’m with her. I hate when ponds throw stones too.
Page 66
Shame over knowing that I’ve had five more years in Claire’s company than I did with Elizabeth, …
This is interesting. Elizabeth was 7 when she was killed. Claire is 11. But somehow she managed to squeeze in an extra year with Claire. Crafty woman.