The Pact

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

Finished June 6th, 2007

Rating: 8/10







From the Publisher
Until the phone calls came at three o''clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead—shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father''s cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact—leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.

Like all Jodi Picoult reads this one too sucked me in and was hard to put down. The effect of suicide on the parents of Emily and Chris was the central theme in the book as each parent handled and reacted to the devastation differently.

Picoult had me guessing until the end as to how Emily died as I was unable to predict the ending. Even though I typically prefer to have some closure at the end of the books and most of my questions answered after finishing a book I ended up with a lot of questions at the end of The Pact and that was okay with me. I still wonder why Emily had this need to commit suicide as it was touched upon but never spelled out for the reader. I wonder why Emily put Chris in such a difficult position if she loved him so much.


SPOILER ALERT
I found myself very angry at Emily for putting Chris in an awful position of asking for help with her suicide and am also frustrated at Chris for not telling anyone about Emily's preoccupation with suicide to try to get her some professional help.