Leaving Time: the impossible-to-forget story with a twist you won't see coming by the number one bestselling author of A Spark of Light

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Jenna meets up with another character at the very end of the book. (pp. 394–395) Were you surprised to see who that was? Why or why not? The memory of an elephant? Turns out it’s a real thing. At the Elephant Sanctuary in TN, elephants reacted so badly to helicopters and planes that they had to institute a no fly zone overhead. The only helicopters most of these elephants would have ever encountered was 40-50 years prior, during the culls when they were captured and brought to the US.

Leaving Time Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary Leaving Time Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary

I've averaged my rating: all things elephant related are 5-stars, with the people stuff being 3-stars. Picoult uses her trademark multiple points of view to good effect in this novel, which has more heart than some of her recent novels. This is how, at age nine, I became an elephant advocate. After a trip to the library, I sat down at my kitchen table, and I wrote to the mayor of Springfield, MA, asking him to give Morganetta more space, and more freedom. Jenna Metcalf was just three years old when she last saw Alice and has spent a decade longing to be reunited with mother, or at least finding out what happened to her. Jenna is now thirteen and began countless, fruitless Internet searches a year earlier for any clue of her mother’s whereabouts. Her daily routine includes a scan of NamUs.gov for any new missing person entries or updates. Beyond a single trace of evidence in an online psychological blog entry about animal grief in 2006, two years after Alice’s disappearance, the search is stone cold. The irony for Jenna is elephants remember everything but she cannot remember much about Alice at all. Serenity Jones was a psychic; but her powers had been lost several years before after she famously gave the wrong information to grieving parents. Virgil Stanhope was the detective who originally went to the scene of the tragedy ten years previously and had since left the police force… I don't even really know what to say about this novel.... I think my jaw is still somewhere on the floor....Gideon confesses that there was an affair between himself and Alice, and when his wife, who had also worked with them, Grace, found out, she committed suicide. Boston Globe ...the writing and storytelling compelled the suspension of disbelief and acceptance of the unimaginable. And in the end an amazed and admiring gasp—‘I did not see that coming.’ NY Journal of Books

Leaving Time Series by Jodi Picoult - Goodreads Leaving Time Series by Jodi Picoult - Goodreads

addendum: As much as I disliked this book, I would never want to spoil the ending or give away too much of the plot for any reader wanting to take it on. Please use a spoiler tag if you'd like to comment on anything that could ruin someone else's reading experience. I hate to delete comments (yes, even the mean ones...), but I will delete a comment if it contains a spoiler that is not hidden. Thanks! One of the major themes ofLeaving Timeis loss and how to cope with it. Discuss some of the ways the characters in this novel deal with their losses. Do you identify with any of these coping mechanisms more than others? How do you approach loss? I really enjoyed this book. I anxiously awaited it as I think it was released later than normal. Then once I had it I was saving it because I hate when it's over and I have to wait for her next book. However, this week I gave in and once I started I couldn't save it anymore. With her rich prose and descriptions, Jodi draws parallels between elephant herds and human families whilst skilfully demonstrating the emotional impacts created by an unseen umbilicus being torn away and I thoroughly enjoyed the way she switched between the perspectives of Jenna, Virgil and Serenity, along with Alice’s memories of her research and life, with the elephants providing a strong emotional centre.Oh. My. God. This book was incredible! I read this at the recommendation of Ginger and am I glad she did! It is incredible. This is a story about grief and family and healing and ---- elephants! I have always liked elephants - they are so incredible. The bonds they make, their ability to empathize. Did you know they are one of the few animals that can recognize that the reflection they see as themselves?

Jodi Picoult · Leaving Time (2014) Jodi Picoult · Leaving Time (2014)

I liked Alice's chapters least of all, and there were a lot of them. We are not yet to know whether she is alive, dead, or where she is, so Alice's voice speaks of her past work with elephants, repeating some of the same facts that we learned from her in the prequel Larger than Life. That was fine as I do find it pretty fascinating stuff, but these chapters went by slowly; I was very distracted by Alice's voice sounding more like an extremely sleepy, bored teenager than a woman in her 20's or 30's. The book at first felt very Young Adult-ish to me. The story was mostly about elephant behavior. I wish it would have said that in the summary of the book. I am trying really hard to finish it, I am now skipping the elephant chapters.I happen to love elephants ...(*Effie*, was my Elephant friend as a child), but even if I didn't ...it's fascinating to hear Alice (Dr. Metcalf), the researcher-naturalist share with us 'her' passion for elephants. At the age of 9, she fell so in love with elephants, she already knew that her adult life would be to work with them. Emily Dwass (April 10, 2015). "Q&A: Author Jodi Picoult on balance, exercise, kids and elephants". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved August 14, 2021. In the end I thoroughly enjoyed this book, shedding a few tears along the way. Actually I grew to love and fully appreciate the story the more I thought about it and connected more of the dots in the days after finishing it. The story is told alternately through the voices of Jenna Metcalf, Serenity Jones, Virgil Stanhope and Alice Metcalf. The glue that binds this literary journey is motherly love for her daughter and ... New evidence in hand and with a new sense of hopefulness, Jenna seeks out Virgil Stanhope, a private investigator who was a detective in the Boone Police Department involved in the botched investigation of Alice Metcalf’s disappearance a decade earlier. Virgil is a broken man, plagued by troubles with the bottle, but in the end agrees to work with Jenna and Serenity to find the missing Alice Metcalf and end his despondency over his incompetence and failure in the initial investigation. Jodi Picoult's Leaving Time features intertwining stories of past and present-day events related to an unsolved crime that separated a daughter from her mother. I adored the “past” events which focused primarily on the mother's post-doctoral study of elephant cognition. Learning about elephant behavior was my favorite part of the book, and I found it both heartbreaking and fascinating. The “present-day” events incorporated a mystery element investigated by an unlikely team of a discredited psychic, a washed up detective, and a thirteen year old. I don't have much knowledge about psychics or the ESP world in general, but I found this an interesting addition to the story.

Leaving Time - Wikipedia Leaving Time - Wikipedia

A pretty hefty amount of disbelief suspending got me through to the ending (count me among the population who is skeptical about psychics), and while I did anticipate some of the twists, the biggest one I did not.I don't know if I loved this book because I didn't see the end coming or I hated it because the end is something that has been done, over and over. I thought she did it cleverly though so I am going to go with love. It was so interesting and even as Jenna is remembering being killed I am like, "Oh she was kidnapped." I didn't even at that point think she was dead! I really want to do a reread and see if things are different now that I know. Kind of like The Sixth Sense. I am glad I did not see any spoilers ahead of time. Classic Jodi. Leaving Time is a 2014 novel by American writer Jodi Picoult. It is the twenty-third novel written by the author. The first edition was published on October 14, 2014, by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Plot summary [ edit ] This story follows 13-year-old Jenna Metcalf who is determined to find her mother, who went missing 10 years prior and was never found. While pouring over one of Alice’s elephant research journals, Jenna discovers a dollar bill in the origami shape of an elephant bookmarking her mother’s passage about 2-3% of science not quantifiable. Taking this as some sort of cosmic sign, Jenna seeks the help of Serenity Jones, a once famous, world renown psychic who has lost command of her Gift, fallen on hard times and settled in quiet obscurity in Boone. As Jenna, Serenity and Virgil dug deeply into the past, trying to find information which had been missed by the police all those years ago, tantalising snippets began to emerge. But what did it mean? Were they any closer to finding out what had happened to Alice all those years ago? Could Jenna get any measure of peace by knowing the answers?