Surprise! Lone Wolf was one of my favorite Jodi Picoult novels. Big surprise! I did not expect this. It’s been a long time since one of her novels surprised me and this one did.
She went light on the catastrophes and heavy on the super-interesting. Like, when we found out that Luke’s son (and Cara’s brother) was gay… we know something else must have happened because that wasn’t enough to send him away (not to mention it seemed like not something his father would have reacted THAT strongly about) so we knew there was SOMETHING else. And knowing Picoult, it had to be something really HORRIBLE, because that is what she does.
But, when we found out what it was – not horrible. Perfectly normal (hahaha) and reasonable. And not so horrifyingly catastrophic that you’re lefting saying – no, too much. Impossible.
Except, we also KNOW something else happened in that car crash – something Cara doesn’t want to talk about. So, we brace ourself for the HUGE, CATASTROPHIC badness that you know Picoult is going to throw at you. And when it comes, it’s a heartbreaker but NOT THAT BAD.
Shock.
And I liked it. The catastrophe can sometimes take away from the story and the characters. It was very nice to NOT have that happen with what was really an interesting story. Maybe she didn’t blow out the bad because Luke was weird enough that the story didn’t need any more crazy?