LEAVING TIME by Jodi Picoult

This was one of the best of Jodi Picoult books. The subject was fascinating and the twist in the story unexpected and extremely clever. The story follows a young girl who is trying to find her mother who became lost to her when she was three. She employs the help of a burnt out psychic and a retired policeman who was in charge of a murder case in an elephant sanctuary where her mother worked and following which her mother disappeared. This book will take you to the wonderful world of elephants in Africa and in preservation in America. It explores the dynamics of motherhood within the elephant kingdom and parallels it with that of human's and I must say the elephants come out on top. While the elephant will not leave her dead calf's body for days on end, the mother of this story runs away not knowing what has even happened to her child. The book also advocates the existence of life after death and the reality of spirit beings through the theory of reincarnation. Even though this theory is one among many which attempt to explain the meaning of life, I found it had profound bearing on the story and left me saddened knowing that there are people out there believing that family relationships end with death and that even though we continue to live as spirits we do not continue the associations we formed in 'each' of our lives. The theory of reincarnation gives little to no hope that we will ever see our loved ones again as we hop around to different bodies and different lives which makes the possibility of crossing paths with people we've come to love extremely thin. I do not believe in the theory of reincarnation and consider it absurd. I do, however, believe in life after death and that we continue on as spirits until the time of resurrection. I look forward to meeting my ancestors with great anticipation when we will renew our family ties which will go on forever. I do not know if Jodi Picoult believes in reincarnation and is attempting to promote it through the medium of this book or if she has used this theory for the impact it makes on the story she tells but the fact that she makes no attempt to discredit it makes me think that she accepts it. If so I feel sorry for the lack of confidence she has in enduring family relationships which makes the premise of her story, that of irreplaceable mother's love, rather futile.

THE RETURNED by Jason Mott

This book irritated me no end. I wanted to read it because I follow the TV series "Resurrection" which is based on the book. I had hoped to get some explanation of 'the Returned' but that explanation was not to be found. What I did find out was that the TV series is way better than the book. The book explores the possibility of having our dear loved ones who had once graced this earth return to life, not as zombies, but as real live people in exact same state as when they passed away, or maybe not. There was one returned who came back with dementia that she had before she died, so did the sick return too? The publisher's review states they returned in the exact same state that they died in, so what of cancer suffers and those who had been chronically ill for years before death and those who had been mangled in car accidents? The author never addresses this possibility and portrays all other Returned as able bodied individuals roaming the countryside. One Returned had died in a car accident but she was perfect in her form when she came back so I see this as a major flow of the story. And what of criminals and murderers and rapists? The story presented too many questions and not enough answers. What irritated me the most is that there was no rhyme or reason to this phenomenon. The dead people were merely all of a sudden coming back as if from a sleep, not remembering how they got there and when they came back they served no purpose; they didn't mend any relationships, they didn't speak any words left unspoken or finish any business they had left undone before they passed away. All they did is create chaos and mayhem among those that didn't want them back, just by their presence. They were the Returned without a voice and depicted as innocent victims. Even those that accepted them didn't believe they were really their loved ones but some unnatural carbon copy and endeared themselves to them because of memories they kept close to their hearts. In the end, no explanation, rhyme or reason, just as the dead started to outnumber the living, they simply started vanishing and thank goodness for that! I did not see the point to this story and considered 'the Returned' the most bizarre concept. The author explains at the end of the book that he once had a dream where he found his dead mother in his kitchen and he related to her all his doings since she had passed. As he told his friend about this dream, his friend asked him: "Can you imagine if she actually did come back, just for one night? And what if it wasn't just her? What if it happened to other people too?" From this was born the idea of The Returned. The story would have endeared itself to me much more had the author focused more on how the three principal characters resolved their issues with their dead instead of treating those resolves as a sideline of the story. What should have been the central theme of the novel got lost in the problem of overpopulation. This was Jason Mott's first novel and even though his publisher calls him 'a unique voice' I am not certain that I would read his succeeding work.