The Pact

The story opens with a young couple, a shot, and a tragedy. So much is predicted from the blurb.

Chris and Emily grew up almost as brother and sister. Their parents assume that eventually they’ll fall in love and get married. We learn this because the book is cleverly written, with dated chapters detailing ‘now’ - the story, as it happens, after the shooting incident - and ‘then’, going back eighteen years or more, and then gradually moving forward so that we learn about these young people and their intense relationship.

The first third of the book is mostly about Chris, the second third about Emily, and the final third is set in a courtroom where, gradually, the truth unfolds.

It’s a draining book. It’s also a moving show more exploration of the relationship between parents and teens. It raises questions about parental expectations; of whether it’s healthy for close friends to fall in love; of how even in what seems to be a clear-cut case, there’s a often room for doubt.

I can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ the book, exactly; but it’s powerful, thought-provoking in many respects, brilliantly written, and I'm glad I read it. The story will stay with me for a while, as will some of the issues raised. So I can't give it less than five stars: I recommend it to anyone dealing with teenagers in any way, but approach with caution. It's traumatic in places, and extremely difficult to put down once started. show less

The Pact is definitely a love story. It tells the compelling tale of 2 families-neighbors for 18 yrs, 2 kids so close that when Emily was born Christopher was placed in her bassinet at the hospital-in essence she shared her bed with him before her parents. As they grow up the ideal best friends-inseparable, able to finish each others sentences, almost siblings-as that changes partially due to the pressure of hormones, partially due to the familiarity of sexual experiments explored with your best friend in the world, the pressures of family, parents, friends, small town expectations all culminating in a relationship that was perhaps too much for Emily. In pain as only a teenager can be-where your whole world is this minute and this day show more and this issue-without the perspective that life experience brings-Emily a serious and intense young girl decides that death-the ability to stop her life now before she makes any mistakes is far preferable to the pain of not living up to the expectations of parents, family, peers and a small town. IT is the story of how you handle the worst event you have ever lived with-the death of your child-when the person most closely involved with that death is the child of your best friend.
Emily is such a strong character and her story is real to anyone who has feared disappointing their parents as they truly leave childhood behind and move into adulthood. The mortification of messing up when you are "the good child" with a bright and promising future. It is about being terrified of what comes next and if you are really as ready for it as everyone seems to think you are. The need to pretend to be perfect, the need to hide your intense all-consuming pain for fear that you hold within you the seeds to the destruction of everyone you have ever loved. To get up and realize one day that you CAN NOT go on, you can not handle what is coming next and that the decision to take your own life has given you the strength to face the in between time. I do not think anyone has not at some point felt that they had dug themselves in so deep that death was preferable to facing what it will take to dig yourself out. Only once you have faced your fears and problems and acted on them-making more mistakes and errors on the way-can you truly come out of that kind of despair. I know, I have been there. What Emily lacked was the perspective that age and experience brings-even though both age and experience can still not save you in the depths of a true depression where right is left, up is down and inside is outside.
This is also the tale of Chris-her boyfriend who could not at all understand what Emily suffered-what inner demons steered her unerringly to suicide-but who loved her enough to want to help her not suffer any more. A truly rare man (in my experience men most often give you what they want you to want and not what you really want or need) but Chris truly loved Emily enough to know that the knight in shining armor Emily needed was not the one he wanted to be, would break his heart into pieces and ultimately destroy his life-and give it to her anyway.
Phenomenal book, emotional roller coaster, but again with the 11th hour shocking court room confession and pat if happy ending show less

This is the second time I’ve actually read this book, and my second Jodi Picoult novel. I bought and read this book at a tumultuous time in Malta, when a young couple where found at the foot of a cliff towards the North of the island, one of them dead, one of them alive. The one who was alive claimed that it was a suicide pact, and that he too was meant to die. The girl was pronounced dead, and had died on impact with the rocks. This case is old now, and remains unsolved. But I remember reading this book for the first time around the time that this case was still being investigated, and everything was so eerily similar, it was almost like I was living through the trial myself just by being in a country where something similar had just show more happened.

The novel follows two families, the Harts and the Golds. Emily Gold and Chris Hart are teenagers in love, who have spent their whole life knowing each other. Their parents are best friends (or rather, their mothers are, and their fathers have been dragged into the friendship by proxy). Emily and Chris have been, from the beginning, dealing with their parents’ expectations: they want them to get married in the future, because they reason that it’s the best future for the both of them.

One night, though, Emily is found dead – a bullet to the head – and Chris is found unconscious, and holding the gun that shot her. He claims it was a suicide pact, but nobody else can corroborate all this, and the situation looks even more dire when the evidence starts rolling in – Emily never displayed suicidal tendencies, she had a whole life to live for, there were signs of a struggle that night, and she was pregnant with Chris’s baby.

The novel explores the intricacies of the legal system when the victim of the crime isn’t present to testify, and the perpetrator claims that there wasn’t a crime to begin with. Picoult does a wonderful job of introducing us to both Chris and Emily’s point of view of the story, centering more around Chris’s towards the end as he is the one to relate it to us, the audience. We find out why Emily wanted to kill herself in the first place, as well as the amazing amount of pressure that they were both under, that played a huge part in their suicide pact. We see the effects of teenage love on two very impressionable young people who cared about each other more than anything. And we see a friendship between adults fall apart in a way that can never be repaired.

While not coming from a legal background, Picoult does an incredible amount of research that clearly shows in her writing. This woman does not write unprepared, and you have to appreciate the tremendous amount of effort that she puts into conveying the story through the most accurate way possible. She shows an understanding of the legal system and of her characters that I rarely find in other novels that deal with such a vast cast.

The novel also does a very good job of asking very important questions, among them one that I find myself asking every time I read this book: Isn’t it weird that Emily and Chris’s parents wanted them to be together so badly? Couldn’t they see how damaging that could be to their children in the long run?

Really, I would recommend this novel to anybody who wants an engaging story with well-developed characters. While the ending might not be to everyone’s liking, the element of realism that Picoult manages to convey in her writing style, in the way her characters interact, in the way that they feel so real and they way they think, is surely more than enough to engage anybody.

Final rating: 5/5 show less

This is a review I wrote in 2007:

**`Do you know what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing her?**

`Do you know what it's like to love someone so much, that you can't see yourself without picturing her? Or what it's like to touch someone, and feel like you've come home?' (Chris)

Chris and Emily knew each other their whole lives. They grew up living next door to each other, were soul mates, best friends, inseparable... like twins. As teenagers their love for each other developed into something more and they became girlfriend & boyfriend - exactly what their parents had hoped would happen. They are bright, still at school, with promising futures ahead of them. But then Em is found dead, shot with a show more single bullet, and Chris with her - injured but very much alive. So what really happened that night? Could Chris have pulled the trigger? Or was this an awful suicide pact gone very wrong?

If you've forgotten what it was like to be seventeen years old, then read this, and remember. Full of passion, emotion and tortuous decisions - another brilliant novel from Jodi Picoult. show less

I had an interesting experience reading "The Pact" - I couldn't put it down, yet I almost couldn't bear to feel the pain of the characters as the plot continuously unwound. The story is brilliantly written, bouncing from perspective to perspective, giving us a unique view of the picture as a whole while leaving out key fragments until we, the readers, were ready to read them. Picoult's writing is poignant and touching, putting things in such a way that I couldn't help but feel sympathy for every character in the book in some way. It is an intense journey that will leave you guessing at what the truth actually is until the very end.

This is a tale of obsession, loss, tragedy, and all the seemingly numerous varieties of guilt. It begins with a failed suicide pact between two teenagers. Emily Gold dies, but the precise reasons behind her death remain obscure. Who pulled the trigger? Her boyfriend, Chris Harte, survives because of having fainted before he could also take his own life, either can't or is unwilling to offer any explanation. The story now shifts back and forth across time and traces the growth of the long, and complex relationship between Emily and Chris. The two families first settled down next to each other...they seemed to be the perfect neighbors and friends. Both families are upper-class New Englanders; both the husbands are doctors; both the wives show more are pregnant at that time so in a sense the pairing of Chris and Emily happened even before they were born. They slept in the same bassinet, they go on to develop a secret language just for the two of them, they are always together...everywhere. As adolescents they are drawn into a fevered romance. It seems inconceivable that Chris could have killed Emily, but a preponderance of forensic evidence suggests that that just might be the case. On his 18th birthday, Chris is arrested. Of course, the perfect harmony between the families instantly dissolves. Melanie Gold, unable to accept the notion that her perfect daughter could have been suicidal and focuses all her anger on the "murderer" next door. Instead of standing by Chris, his father, James, disinherits his son who he now considers a liability to his prestigious career. Chris himself, gets saddled with a hot-shot lawyer who is much more interested in building a case than in hearing or finding the truth. Chris sinks into despair. The trial alternates between rapid-fire testimony with flashbacks to the actual suicide. These are particularly powerful, and what Chris finally says when he takes the stand comes as a BIG surprise. Overall...it's a moving story, mixed with elements of mystery and a sensitive exploration of a tragic subject. show less

I understand why some people enjoyed this book and I equally understand why a lot of people hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. The story is manipulative and not particularly plausible. The characters are inconsistent at best and largely unsympathetic. (Could the four parents have gotten any more blind and stupid?!) And the ending, after all that build-up, could only be called a whimper if you were feeling charitable.

But you know what... she got you thinking and talking about what she wrote. And that's really the whole point of any Jodi Picoult book. Whether or not you liked the book, whatever you think of her as a writer, she gets you involved in subjects that most people normally shy away from. Had you given much thought to show more teenage suicide before you read this book? Unless it has happened in your life, probably not- it's one of those uncomfortable things society doesn't like to look closely at. So I do generously give this book three stars. Because even though it really is pretty horrible, it is still able to draw passionate reactions nine years after it's release. show less