Perfect Match Jodi Picault
Some of Jodi Picault’s stories really speak to me but Perfect Match wasn’t one of them. Interesting that she chose to make a sequel based on this book’s characters who all seemed unsympathetic. The plot is contrived. A prosecutor who handles cases of sexual assault against children learns that her own son has been molested. She then proceeds through a series of quick judgements and assumptions, apparently never learning her lesson and stopping to let justice do its job. I guess the point of the story is that as a prosecutor she doesn’t trust justice to do its job, at least in these cases.
Well, that’s a sad fact, if true. It would be nice to suggest that there are better ways to handle the incident that empower and heal the child than to say that there are only horrible and worse options for the child. I don’t know if Picault spoke to actual prosecutors or if this (blind retribution) is just what sells books. I particularly disliked the twist at the end. The prosecutor’s husband is one of the less well drawn characters in a book where all the characters seem like stereotypes (can you guess that the molester is a priest?). When you need to have a character surprise you at the end, it’s always easiest to make them murky right from the beginning.