Book Review - Picture Perfect

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. However, things are not as great as they seem, because soon Alex begins to beat Cassie. 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. 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. A love triangle is established that will ultimately test the power of their love and the strength of their own identities.
Jodi Picoult, as always, is an excellent story-teller, and one of my favorite writers. Reading her books is like taking a class on how to write fiction that’s at once compelling, entertaining, and moving. 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.
That said, there was one thing that bugged me. I started to get really annoyed with Cassie for staying with Alex as long as she did, to the point where I almost didn’t care anymore about what happened to her. Also, I failed to understand what both Alex and Will saw in her, why they both were so hopelessly in love with this woman.
Yet, despite my complaint, I still think Picture Perfect is a great story. I have read other books about abuse, and I’ve seen movies as well, and in each one the abuser is always the ultimate evil bad-guy, the woman is the martyred victim, forced to find her strength, and the other guy (the guy she finds once she leaves her husband) is nice and predictably perfect for her. Picoult never stoops to such cliché’s. All of her characters have strengths and weaknesses, no one is a true sinner or a saint.


By Laurel Osterkamp
2007. All rights reserved