Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is one of those authors that has a pretty large group of readers who have to read everything she writes. I am not one of those people. I have only read one of her books before, Nineteen Minutes, but I keep her on my list just to see what all the hype is about.

Keeping Faith is about a little girl who starts talking to God, like one would an imaginary friend and later micraculous events occur around her. However, her mother is the main character and most of it revolves around her struggles with her divorce, her identity as a mother, and depression.
This was definitely a worthwhile read. It was engaging and suspenseful. I knew it had a religious topic and was a little concerned that it would seemed forced to be "controversal" and in fact she did manage to include depression/suicide and a child custody case, but despite her use these plot devices, at the core the characters were honest and heartfelt. In some ways, I felt like I waited for a big, revealing climax that never happened. And Picoult nearly abandoned her plot devices with little conclusion. She did allow the characters emotional closure and, I assume, made the point she intended to. In a way, I feel as though Picoult disguises her books as an intellectual, suspenseful "realistic fiction" but this one was little more than good chick lit. I am not trying to detract from the novel, just stating it has no potential to be a classic, which I sometimes get that indication from the hype. Nevertheless, I did enjoy this book.

Positives: Good character development. She managed an interesting and intriging plot, but it did not overpower the entire novel as some do. A page turner and thought-prokoving.

Negatives: It was overwhelming to me, but I could see that some people might feel she had an agenda with the religious overtones of the plot. A couple cliche and stock characters that I could care less about.

Rating: 4 - this was a good book