Book Review

I finished Keeping Faith, by Jodi Picoult. The author holds my interest in that she does write out-of-the-box story lines. At the end of this book there is a Q&A with the author, and she mentions having an extremely uneventful childhood. She has balanced that with an active imagination!

The book is about a seven-year-old child named Faith who sees God after her parents get divorced. God comes to her as a female, motherly protector. When her grandmother dies, God tells Faith what to do to heal her. This begins a national fury that results in hundreds of media, religious zealots, and sick people congregating in their yard to get a piece of her.

The story begins with the divorce. Mariah finds her husband Colin in their bedroom with another woman. Unfortunately, Faith is with her, and sees this also. He leaves, and within days files for divorce.

Colin and Mariah met in college, where he is the handsome, popular jock, and she is the studious, loner who is hired to tutor him. She is so consumed by a sense of inadequacy when he decides to go out with her, that she totally excuses his indiscretions early in their relationship. She has no friends other than her mother, and is completely needy. She worships the ground he walks on even now, despite the fact that he had her committed to a mental institution the first time she discovered he was having an affair and tries to kill herself. She's a complete pushover who determines her own worth by how this man treats her.

Mariah tries to keep it together after the divorce for the sake of her daughter. Then her daughter starts talking to God. This makes Mariah nervous, so she takes her daughter to a psychiatrist. To her credit, however, she never once thinks her daughter is lying.

After a long drawn out media circus, performing several healings, experiencing stigmata, which brings on the attention of the Catholic church and her own Jewish leadership, and a lengthy custody battle, God leaves as quickly as she appeared.

The story is well told, if convoluted. I do appreciate the author's imagination when considering realistic, yet uncommon, experiences. If nothing else, her books make you think.