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Change of Heart
by Jodi Picoult
A fiction novel that explores a mother's ultimate moral dilemma.
After reading Change of Heart, by Jodi Picoult, you might find yourself yearning to join a debate team, found a philosophy club, and/or return to practicing the religion that you abandoned years ago. Picoult’s 2007 cognitively-demanding best-seller chronicles the trauma-filled life of June Nealon, who loses her first husband to a drunk driver, and her second husband Kurt and seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth to a double murder that her carpenter, Shay Bourne, commits within the confines of her own home.
Held accountable for the deaths of a revered cop and an innocent child, not to mention possessing in his pocket Elizabeth’s blood-tainted underwear at the scene of the crime, Shay finds himself occupying a likely position in a New Hampshire penitentiary, waiting to serve the state’s first death sentence in 69 years. In what originally seems to be a final desperate plea to salvage his life, Shay voices his desire to donate his heart to none other than his victim’s sister, Claire Nealon. Yet we soon discover that the only thing Shay is trying to salvage is his soul. Claire, the child June had been pregnant with when Kurt and Elizabeth were robbed of their lives, will die without a heart transplant, and Shay’s final request is to supply her with this vital organ. After the seemingly impossible occurs—doctors verify that Shay’s heart is a perfect match for Claire—June is faced with the ultimate moral dilemma: grant Shay’s wish and allow the heart of her family’s murderer to beat inside of her own daughter’s chest, or lose her only remaining child.
Meanwhile, as if the plot hadn’t complicated itself enough already, Shay begins to perform Green Mile-style miracles in prison. Murders and miracles seldom go hand-in-hand, but fellow prisoners, officers, and even a priest claim to witness Shay turn water into wine, revive a dead pet bird, and cure a terminal disease. He even begins to recite, verbatim, quotes from a gospel that the Christian religion discarded thousands of years earlier. Could a cold-blooded killer be a messiah?
Leave it to Picoult to tackle this question, scrutinize the issue of morality, and challenge conventional religious beliefs, as she invites her reader into a realm of endless possibility and contemplation. Just when you think you have successfully reasoned with the convoluted thoughts that her brilliantly-crafted storyline provokes, Picoult’s penchant for a last-minute plot twist manifests itself yet again. However, Change of Heart’s highly anticipated final turn of events intended to shock the reader is uncharacteristically predictable—be prepared to figure it out within the first 20 minutes of reading.
Title: Change of Heart
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Atria Books
ISBN: 0743496744
Review written by: Alyssa DellaCamera
Reviewer's Rating:8.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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