I have never read a Jodi Picoult book before. I saw My Sister's Keeper in theaters shortly after losing my Big sister to cancer in college. It destroyed me, so I pretty much never wanted to deal with anything Picoult ever again.Then, I had a lot of them donated to my classroom and since I like to read books before I give them out so I can talk to kids about them, I picked up Harvesting the Heart for fun over spring break.
This was Picoult's second novel and it told the story of a creative young woman who falls into love at an early age and finds herself a reluctant mother. Overall, it's very much a coming of age story, but it also delves into women's issues like abortion and young motherhood. I liked how the story flipped between Paige's and Nicholas's perspectives to show the all-around version of the same story.
It was a relatively quick read that I finished it in two days while I was on vacation. I appreciated it for encompassing so much in only 460 pages. From Paige's turmoil in her first love relationship, her subsequent abortion and the story of unyielding love she found with her heart surgeon husband and their son. You saw this character grow up as the novel progressed and in it heal not only herself, her relationship with her mother, but also her father and her parent's own relationship with each other.
The novel was written in 1993, so it was also nice to read a more modern book without all of the complications of cell phones and facebook.
Final score: 4/5 stars Book Information: Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult with ISBN 0140230270 was originally published by Penguin Books on April 1, 1995.
I had this dream the other night about Bad Love. Up until that point, I couldn't even tell you the last time I had thought about him let alone had a dream about him. It was very strange. We met at what I think was a cafe and he sat in front of me and told me how he wanted to make it work out. All I kept saying was, "what about Phil?" He eventually starts getting frustrated with this answer and stops talking. It's one of those heavy, awkward silences that's almost painful. I get his attention again and I go, "You know what? I don't need you anymore."
And just like that, he got up and left. Then, I woke up.
"Been around the world so many times,I'm of the air, I'm of the sky. I wonder what my feet need the ground for, no one sing lullabies no more."
Fast forward to last night when my friend Catie and I were working on editing my latest manuscript because I promised myself that this was the year I was going to publish as much as I could. It's another manuscript that I had written and worked on and off on for several years...I would just always get nervous having people read my stuff. Which is really stupid when I think about how much of my stuff is out there for people to read. Anyway, this leads to discussion of Bad Love and the dream I had.
And then...it happened. When Bad Love and I were dating, he drew a picture of the Eiffel Tower for me. I so loved it. It was beautiful and it was my favorite place-- PARIS! It was the one thing I kept from that relationship over the years. It lived in a book case and it matched two more drawings I had acquired from a thrift store of the Arc de Triomphe and Sacre Coeur. Phil came into the room holding the broken frame and apologizing that it was the strangest thing, it just toppled out of and off the bookcase, breaking into four different pieces. Every other picture that's in there is still there, including the one that was in front of the drawing. Phil also had no idea what I was talking about to Catie at that moment because we were facebook messaging.
How creepy is that? The universe is very clearly wrapping up a brief chapter of my life that I turned into an extremely long chapter by using Bad Love as an excuse to date tool bag wannabe band boys.
Today also marks the two year anniversary of when Phil and I sat in an Applebee's drinking and eating hamburgers and playing never have I ever with a napkin. We were "official" by the end of that date and I think that was really only our 3rd or 4th date overall. We pretty much met and that was it, the rest were just formalities. Two years later, having backpacked across Europe together, gone to Disney World, adopted a dog and bought a house-- I can say that we have definitely been busy :0).
We spent the day today shoveling out from the monster blizzard we had and recuperating. I actually took a nap today that how run down and tired I feel with all that's going on. I'm thankful to have a snow day tomorrow and I'm also thankful that I got to be snowed in on my anniversary with the man I love, our dopey dog and our silly cats. It was definitely one of those super awesome weekends where you didn't have much of anything to do and you just got to be with your person.
Getting to watch Molly almost somersault backwards because she got stuck in a snow drift on our deck was also pretty priceless.
The reason why I haven't been posting and why I still owe Disney World an entire post, is this. It comes out in two weeks. I can't tell you how I have wrote, re-wrote, questioned...all of it...so much. The end result may be a little dramatic and my main lady really does go through a lot, but I think it will be appreciated for the chick litty, dark romance that it is.
That said, any book blogs want a review copy? E-mail me if you'd like a copy to review: katherine [at] katherinekb [dot] com .
