Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reason you can watch him shatter a ceramic lamp, and still remember him as an angel. Or hold him as he cries, but imagine his smile. Or watch him walk toward you, the size of a man, and see the dimpled skin of an infant."

That sometimes our troubles and trials are too great for us to handle, so we must escape into death??? Early morning: Some people find that reading in the morning helps them start their day with a positive and productive mindset. It was finally Friday. I was on my way home from school, I hated that kip, but I know that if I want to have a place to live I have to continue going there. Dad has told me, if I dropout, I may as well move out. That wouldn't be too bad, although I know I can't afford my own place. Besides deep down, I couldn't see myself leaving him. We're all each other have. Chris...about two thirds thru the book is when I started feeling bad for him....his emotions, life, everything, was being played and toyed with by Emily.

Dakota Rebel

Michael...for turning to Gus....did not like where I thought that was going to go....thank God it didnt. In the present, the Golds are devastated by Emily's death, bewildered by the notion that she was suicidal and they had no inkling.

He tried to pretend that he did not feel the weight of her grief, lying between them like a fitfull child, so solid that he could not reach past it to touch her."Their daughter was a talented artist with applications on her desk to the finest art schools, including the Sorbonne. No, all the stories in this novel are fictional. Are they making a movie on The Pact by Dakota Rebel? This book was a complete and utter mess. After this review I’m going to push this story from my mind and pretend that I never read it at all. I don’t think there is a single good thing I said about this book. I guess I semi-liked Chris’s sister Kate but she wasn’t in it enough for me feel attached to her. Everything else besides Kate was a pile of crap. To say there had been a loss was ludicrous; one lost a shoe or a set of keys. You did not suffer the death of a child and say there was a loss. There was a catastrophe. A devestation. A hell."

have been neighbors and friends from the time Melanie and Gus were pregnant with their first children. The kids, Emily Gold and Chris Harte, grew up together, became a couple, and are now high school seniors preparing for college. We are close to these people because we have read their thoughts. We know things about each of them that they choose to hide from the people in their lives, truths that are never revealed to anyone in the story. We have seen their lives through their eyes, so we understand their pain, their motivations, their choices as though we are them. But then Picoult allows her jury to make a decision that can only be made by someone reading her book -- not by a juror witnessing the most bizarre of all trials. I've tried setting him up on dates, I've tried suggesting him to meet new people, but I think after Mom, he finds it hard to trust. I mean they were together for 10 years before she left. That's a long time to spend with one person, for them to just walk out with no explanation. UPDATING MY REVIEW. In full disclosure, I've never been able to read this book in "one sitting." It's just too hard. So brace yourself. Cyrus – Abigail and I have been best friends since high school, and I’ve been in love with her since the moment I first saw her. We made a pact that we would marry each other if we were still single by time we were twenty-five. And I’ve been doing my best to ensure that’s exactly what happens.

To sum up, I wanted to tell the main character's girlfriend (I've forgotten all of their names, mercifully), to "get over yourself!!" I'm not giving anything away when I reveal that the "pact" of the title involves her asking her boyfriend to help her commit suicide. Of course, a dramatic trial ensues. What moron couldn't have predicted that--which is another reason why I loathe this person for placing her boyfriend in unnecessary legal trouble of the Shawshank Redemption kind.

Do you know... what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing [them]? Or what it's like to touch someone, and feel like you've come home?" During your commute: If you take public transportation or have a long commute, you may find it helpful to use that time to read.

The Pact Summary

Lots of goodreads reviewers complain that Emily was weak and unlikeable, which to me attests to how undeveloped her character was. This would have been a better book had Jodi developed her more and made her stronger, even if the basic premise had been the same. I felt sorry for Emily and Chris' parents. They both lost a person they love and Chris' family was struggling through their son's imprisonment and trial. The teenagers families were once so close and now Emily's mother becomes bitter and vindictive and her father looks for comfort from Chris' mother. Although puffy, or baggy clothes isn't my style I also don't want to be freezing if it happens to be colder than expected. I liked this better than My Sister's Keeper as a whole, although I have some of the same complaints about it. This author is a master of making you believe in a story that makes exactly no sense and making you care about characters who behave like exceptional idiots*. If I thought about any of it for very long, it was all mind-numbingly stupid. But I have to admit that the story is engrossing and satisfying in the end. Anyway, as much as I hate school I always make sure my grades are good. I get A's in all subjects except in Home ec . I'm failing Home ec . I can't cook for shit, and I need to pass it, or else I won't live it down. Dad would be so disappointed in me.