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Harvesting the Heart

The heartbreaking and unputdownable ethical dilemma novel from the bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper

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Harvesting the Heart

By: Jodi Picoult
Narrated by: Garrick Hagon, Kate Harper
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About this listen

 Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who left when she was five. Now, having run away from her father for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, Paige finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence, and shameful memories of her past, make her doubt her ability as a mother and her own self-worth.

(P)2010 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks©2010 Jodi Picoult Coming of Age Contemporary Family Life Genre Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in this lush second novel
Picoult is at her best when she is writing about motherhood
Picoult tackles this moral dilemma with honest conviction and beautifully written prose
Jodi Picoult's novels often focus on lives turned upside down by some terrible event, and it's her way with the small emotional detail that makes them so rewarding
All stars
Most relevant
This book is typical Jodi Picoult: intense introspection into relationships coupled with quite a bit of medical detail (the author has medical training and it shows!). Paige and Nicholas are the couple whose relationship the book follows in minuet detail from exultant first flush of love to dissolution and resentment. The differences in their social backgrounds, the pressures of his work as a heart surgeon and her struggles with post-natal depression all add to the turmoil of emotions that the author is so good at describing. Having two narrators works well and both are good at making their characters come to life. I enjoyed the book and have only knocked off a star as I find the excessive use of similes annoying as it levaes little for the listener's imagination.

A relationship dissected

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I am a big fan and thought this book was very good if a little slow at first. Some of the passages describing the feelings of a new mother are extremely emotive and sensitively written and tug deep at the heart strings

Good listen

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I enjoyed it - I'm a big Jodi Picoult fan - however it was definitely not one of her best. The ending was particularly disappointing and there were odd inconsistencies with some of the characterisation. Having been through PND and very similar thought processes to Paige after the birth of my 1st child, I had been able to empathise with her in the beginning, but felt her character went a bit off course as the book progressed. If you're new to Picoult, try some of her other books first - My Sister's Keeper and Change of Heart are amazing.

Good but not great

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I found the whole book full and boring. I did not 'like' any of the characters and found I did not sympathise with them.
There were errors in the story too and a few with the narration.
overall a disappointing read (listen).

Dull and rather boring

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I generally like Jodi Picoult books but I really didn’t enjoy this at all. It lacked any depth or real story and I found the performances irritating and somehow the voices didn’t fit the characters. I will remain a Picoult reader but can’t recommend this book sadly.

Disappointing

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