Harvesting the Heart: A Novel

This is such an amazing book. I have not been able to put in down. It stays with you long after you are done and the story is one not to be forgotten. I highly recommend this book to any woman.

Pleasant, Easy to Read novel. Certainly hits on topics any mother can relate to and is a lovely story about how two people find each other and try to make it all work. 'It' being family, love, life, and relationships. Not a deep book, but a pleasant read.

At 18, Paige O'Toole moves halfway across the country, desperate to begin a new life. Most recently is a heartbreak involving her boyfriend Jake; but really, Paige's entire life until that point has been shattered, thanks to her mother's abandonment of the family when Paige was five.

Within months of arriving in Boston, Paige meets Nicholas Prescott, a medical resident on the verge of a promising career. The two fall madly, swiftly in love, and begin a new life together.

Only after the birth of their baby Max does Paige begin to realize exactly what's happened. She has extreme difficulty caring for Max, both physically and emotionally, and believes this is largely due to being abandoned by her own mother. Plus, Paige resents her husband for getting to live his life and follow her dreams, while she's home with a screaming infant all day...and the infant himself for being the source of her discontent.

Without actually planning it, Paige sets off to find her mother, to finally meet the woman who subconsciously managed to ruin her entire adulthood. When she does, Paige discovers there are no real answers to why people do the things they do, and that history doesn't always have to repeat itself...

I'm a huge fan of Jodi Picoult books, but as one of her older ones it is clear that her style is not as refined here as it is in her later novels. The characters are not as deeply developed as I would have liked.

I am an avid Jodi Picoult fan, and I have to say that this book was quite disappointing. The book never quite gained enough momentum to keep me hooked like her other ones did. Also, not a single one of her characters developed beyond a caricature of a stereotype - the woman with the past come back to haunt her, the frosty society wife with a soft side, the career-focused man who discovers he does indeed have space in his life for family. Her other books featured characters with deep flaws but who still evoked some sympathy from the reader. I couldn't find one sympathetic character in this book, and that is a problem when the story is supposed to one that appeals to your emotions.