Leaving Time: A Novel

When I began this book, I felt as if I were in the hands of a master storyteller, and I did enjoy it, right up until the end, when I felt annoyed; tricked, even. But I'll get to that (and I'll be sufficiently discreet to avoid spoiling it for you.)First, the good. The protag is engaging, and so are all of the other characters. Picoult knows how to entertain, and when she has the failed celebrity psychic and the loser detective team up to help Jenna, it's a winner right there. Alice, the mother, is compelling, as is Thomas and the rest of the team at the sanctuary. The world of elephants is very interesting to learn about, and moving. The descriptions of Africa were so beautiful I read them aloud to my husband.The writing is intelligent, even LOL funny in places. Big themes are addressed. In fact, in the beginning I was enthralled by the idea that we'd be looking at questions like these: Is there an afterlife? What benefit is there in defaulting to the negative if we'll never know the truth? How do you answer the scientifically unanswerable questions? Even the questions posed about elephant culture are intriguing. These are all marks of quality in a novel.But the ending, for all the nicely paced denouement and gratifying tears I shed, was not my cup of tea. It diminished the joy I had originally felt in reading. I even went back and read the last 15% of the book again, because I wanted to see if I could reconcile my new understanding of the truth with the scenes that now had to be viewed in a new light. Could I read them again and say, "Oh, aha, Picoult never actually SAID blah blah blah. That was my inference. How skillful of her!"No. In a second reading I just got more aggravated. The scenes and the story only make sense until you read the ending. And they don't. It's not like the rereading opens your mind to a new, broader way of looking at the world. There are whole pages of scenes that now seem more like a creative writing exercise than part of the story.So why did I give it four stars? Because the writing deserves it, regardless of my view that the ending corrupts the story in retrospect.

This was a book I could not put down!I also learned a lot about elephants. They are fascinating. We should pay more attention to animals.

I've felt nonplussed by massive twists at the end of other Jodi Picoult books, but the shocker at the conclusion of this story left me bawling (in a good way--I love books that make me cry.) I was taking a COVID-19 walk, listening to the audiobook, and in an instant, tears streamed down my cheeks. Should've brought the tissues!The author created such identifiable characters, including the elephants, that I couldn't help but connect emotionally with them. I loved the talents of four audiobook narrators: Jenna (smart pre-teen), Alice (Jenna's scientist mother), Serenity (fallen psychic to the stars), and Virgil (former police detective). Alice disappeared ten years ago during an incident at the elephant sanctuary owned by Jenna's father, and Jenna is determined to find her mother. She enlists the unlikely help of Serenity as well as Virgil, who investigated Alice's disappearance.Alice's research in Africa focused on elephant behavior in the context of mother-daughter relationships and grief. Mother and daughter elephants stay together until one of them dies. Upon death, elephants linger by the deceased for days, eschewing food and water in the depths of their grief.Sadly, Jenna and her mother are different from elephants--they have been apart for years. Jenna has faith that her mother is still alive.I'm quite skeptical of the paranormal, but Serenity the psychic is so likable that I could suspend disbelief and ride along with the story. Virgil is a sad character who deserves a happy ending. The portrayal of Jenna's father's mental illness seems a bit off, but it's a minor part of the story.The title has multiple meanings.

Fascinating! Tightly drawn plot with great characters, powerful prose, and complex denouement. Loved every word, every idea, every possibility. So many questions throughout the book. All answered by the end. Don’t miss this one.

Parts of this book were good but I didn’t like the plot twist because it turned the story into something supernatural instead of a book about a young girl working with people to find her mother. The elephant data was interesting but there was so much of it throughout the whole story it felt repetitive but the ending’s good.

I really liked everything about this book. It was interesting, entertaining, intriguing and touching. I highly recommend this book for all readers.

This book a good story with a great twist. When you finish this book you will have a new found love for elephants. A must read for animal lovers.

Jodi Picoult is my new favorite author. I discovered her when some of her books were banned in school libraries in Florida. How could I not find out what all the fuss was about? And, this is a wonderful novel. Interesting characters. Joy and sadness. Surprises. Well researched. Not to be missed.

When I buy a Jodie Picoult book I expect a beautifully told, true-to-life human drama about real people dealing with life’s curveballs. I expect a narrative that’s compelling in a ‘this could happen to anyone’ way and finely drawn characters that elicit empathy and affection. What Picoult serves up here, though, is a barely credible piece of fiction ... with a herd of elephants trampling all over it.The story has potential: A 13 year-old’s search for the mother who vanished 10 years ago after a tragic incident at the family elephant sanctuary. So far so good. But ... Jenna’s mum, Alice, was a renowned elephant expert and, for some reason, Picoult sees fit to indulge in lengthy, pseudo scientific tracts about elephant behavior and memory. These are interspersed in the narrative and drove me nuts! Every time I started getting sucked into the story and characters, off we’d go on another elephant safari. This killed the momentum time and time again, and I ended up skim reading whole chapters just to get back to the plot. Okay, so elephants may indeed be fascinating creatures, but seriously, why would you want to combine fact and fiction like this? It’s like mixing oil and water: it just doesn’t work!To add to my frustration, there were things about young Jenna that just didn’t ring true. I mean, how many people can remember anything other than vague snapshots from their early childhood? Jenna, amazingly, who must be one of the most precocious 13 year olds I’ve ever come across, fictional or otherwise, can recall whole conversations between her mother and father! Now, it may well be the case, that a lot of these gaps get patched up in the ‘incredible twist’ at the end of the book. But, I’m afraid I didn’t hang around to find out, having relinquished all hope of a decent read about half-way through.Ms Picoult needs to take a step back and remind herself why she’s loved by millions of readers worldwide. It’s certainly not for this self-indulgent twaddle.Thanks for reading my review. I hope you found it helpful. You can find more candid book reviews my profile page.

Not wanting to give the plot away, I'll only say that it would have been easy for the author to make this novel a "thriller". I think this could have been carried out by making the detective the principal character. It was courageous not to do this and it certainly paid off. Very sad in parts concerning the human characters and the elephants.I found the book rather slow in places but my patience was well compensated by the ending.I thought the factual parts about elephants was moving, hart warming and distressing in equal measure.I would recommend this novel.

I can't remember when I was last so surprised by the end of a book! I gasped out loud. The ending alone was worth five stars.I agree with some other reviewers that the book was slightly over-long and could have done with a good edit: one grew a bit bored of Jenna's repetitive imaginings about what having a mother might have been like (she never stopped to think that her mother might have been unpleasant to live with!) However, that said, this is a remarkable book and an excellent read. Highly recommended.

Oh dear. I have always been a fan of this author but in recent years become rather bored of her endless pages of research being regurgitated to show how much work she's done. This book is no exception. I only managed this to the end as we have recently returned from safari in Africa and knew a little about Elephants which helped our interest levels somewhat. However even this took it too far and I felt I was reading an elephant research text book.The story itself started well; a missing person mystery which held attention with likeable cliched characters - failed retired detective; failed psychic, and sad daughter looking for answers as to what happened to her missing mother.The elephant research dragged the story along to far too long a book and the ending, whilst a shock and unexpected, left far too many questions.Also - can we really truly believe that the original investigation team didn't find the research book in the tree? The finger nail in the clothing? The hair on the dead body???Do not read on (please) if you have not read it yet SPOILER ALERT COMINGI did not expect the clever ending. Sixth sense meets novel but ... She died aged three so how is she now a teenager? How did she go to school? How did her living father hit her and give her a black eye? We're so many people dead - like the police officer who initially told her that the detective had died? A ghost pathologist did a DNA test? Very unlucky characters that so many connected to the story had died - the child, mothers lover, his wife, his mother in law, various police officers, granny, lab technician, etc. all very far fetched for a writer of this calibre.Good story, too many holes, too much about elephants. Please can Jodi P return to the good yarns she used to write?

Jodi Picoult has pulled together a rich panoply of themes, including motherhood, grief, elephants (behavior, abuses of), love, mental illness, psychic seers and psychology--the list goes on. Being an avid viewer of wildlife documentaries, I was impressed by the authenticity and scope of Picoult's research into elephant behavior. Some readers have apparently been put off by what they see as extraneous riffs, but I found them fascinating, moving, and totally integral to the human drama. Picoult gives to the elephants the warm empathy she's known for showing toward her human characters, this novel being no exception. In addition to reflecting the feelings of the characters, the elephants are key to pushing the drama forward. In this way, Picoult demonstrates how close we are to the animal world--something emphasized again and again in David Attenborough's documentaries. Saving wildlife is not an airy fairy bit of altruism, but, literally in this case, necessary to save humanity in the only environment in which we can exist. The psychic/ spiritual element, a vital component of the drama, also seems odd, given Picoult's capabilities in depicting fine human interactions and emotions without the help of the supernatural. Here, too, she has done her research. In the end, the psychic element lends yet another layer to the rich tapestry of the novel. I have mixed feelings about the final twist at the end, which seems to break the intense emotions of the rest, but it certainly is entertaining