
That said, there was one thing that bugged me. There are some extremely effective passages in this book that demonstrate her mastery with words, and I would recommend Picture Perfect to anyone who enjoys a good story about the complexities of love and the imperfections of the human race.
#PICTURE PERFECT BOOK HOW TO#
Reading her books is like taking a class on how to write fiction that’s at once compelling, entertaining, and moving. Jodi Picoult, as always, is an excellent story-teller, and one of my favorite writers. A love triangle is established that will ultimately test the power of their love and the strength of their own identities. When she can no longer handle the punishment that loving Alex brings, she turns to Will, a Native American cop who has his own demons to battle. Of course, there are reasons why he beats her (he suffered abuse as a child, his parents never loved him) and reasons why she puts up with it (she had an alcoholic mother who depended on her, her first love was shot and killed), but ultimately, Cassie must decide if love should be as forgiving as she has spent her life being. However, things are not as great as they seem, because soon Alex begins to beat Cassie.
#PICTURE PERFECT BOOK MOVIE#
Picture Perfect, by Jodi Picoult, tells the story of Cassie, an anthropologist who’s married to the famous Alex Rivers, a movie star as talented as Daniel Day Lewis, as desired as George Clooney, and as handsome as both of those guys put together. Overall, I was disappointed and finally annoyed with this book. if she were, that would have showed up in her ability to relate to him sexually. I just didn't believe that Cassie was living in constant fear of him. But this really wasn't that book.Īlso, after awhile all the rapturous descriptions of sex with Alex undermined the storyline. If it had been a better and more nuanced book, I could have accepted that, or taken it as a critique of the effects domestic violence can have (Stockholm syndrome, that kind of thing). so that it was STILL about what was best for him, rather than what was best for her. I was especially bothered by how Cassie's decision to "out" her husband as abusive was framed as her realizing that she had to make him hate her, because she would always love him. Disappointing (and a romance novel would have cost less, frankly).

But toward the end I realized that it was basically just a romance novel dressed up to look like something more serious. I spent most of the book thinking that it was going to focus on how difficult it is to honestly connect with someone who is constantly acting, or even maybe something about how the romance novels Cassie read during her marriage had contributed to her putting up with abuse.

Underwhelming treatment of domestic violence with a weak ending.
