The Pact

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All of the above were present in "The Pact," a story of the death of a teenage golden girl, with her longtime boyfriend accused of the murder -- which he claims was a double suicide gone awry. The defendant bobs and weaves as news of Emily's pregnancy comes to light, and plenty of red herrings are thrown into the mix. But still something was missing. How did three of my friends end up reviewing this book on the same day, especially when at least two of them didn't read it that recently? Did I miss a review contest or something? When I first started I thought it was about a suicide PACT...but really, it was a different PACT alltogether.

As the story opens Emily and Chris are on a date at a local carousel when a shot is fired. Cut to the hospital: Emily, shot in the head, is dead; Chris is disoriented with 70 stitches for a scalp laceration. When the police arrive Chris says that he and Emily had a suicide pact but that he fainted and fell before he could shoot himself. Before long Chris is arrested for murdering Emily. Throughout the entire second half of the novel, when Emily's slow ascent downward is being explained, I wanted to shake Chris until his teeth rattled. If my boyfriend came to me and said, "I want to kill myself. I'm extremely unhappy because of something but I refuse to tell you why", I would immediately seek therapy for him in ANY WAY POSSIBLE. However, Chris being a naive teenager (what other reason could there be???), does nothing, convincing himself that he can stop Emily before she takes the final step. I felt sorry for Emily and Chris' parents. They both lost a person they love and Chris' family was struggling through their son's imprisonment and trial. The teenagers families were once so close and now Emily's mother becomes bitter and vindictive and her father looks for comfort from Chris' mother. Cyrus – Abigail and I have been best friends since high school, and I’ve been in love with her since the moment I first saw her. We made a pact that we would marry each other if we were still single by time we were twenty-five. And I’ve been doing my best to ensure that’s exactly what happens.I think Emily pressed Chris' finger and shot herself. She got the strength to do it because he was there with her. I don't think he would have done it otherwise. Neither one could do it by themselves. I dont fully understand how he could have gone through with helping her commit suicide, and not tell someone...either her parents or his? I wonder if he did, if things would have ended up okay, or if she would have went ahead and done it alone? The Pact starts off with a boy and a girl, who are later identified as Chris and Emily, talking. The boy and girl tell each other “I Love You” and then there is a shot fired. After that the reader is taken to two sets of parents, Chris and Emily’s. They are sharing dinner at a Chinese restaurant like usual. We find out that they are neighbors and have been since before Chris and Emily were born. Of course, Chris and Emily, aged 18 in the present time, were attached at the hip since day 1 and are destined to be together and there is a big sense of attachment between these characters. But after they finish dinner and arrive home they receive phone calls that they need to go to the hospital. Emily is dead and Chris is injured. Chris says it was a suicide pact but police suspect otherwise because they think Chris pulled the trigger. After some tearful exchanges, the whirlwind ~adventure~ starts in The Pact. Did Chris kill her or was it really a suicide pact???

I hated the entire premise of the novel. A suicide pact that turns out not to be a suicide pact, but rather a young man helping his girlfriend kill herself??? In some ways, Picoult sullied and insulted the truest nature of love. Chris (the boy involved with the suicide pact) considers it to be true love as he releases his girlfriend Emily from her worldly cares and pain. Is this really what true love is? I've tried setting him up on dates, I've tried suggesting him to meet new people, but I think after Mom, he finds it hard to trust. I mean they were together for 10 years before she left. That's a long time to spend with one person, for them to just walk out with no explanation. We are close to these people because we have read their thoughts. We know things about each of them that they choose to hide from the people in their lives, truths that are never revealed to anyone in the story. We have seen their lives through their eyes, so we understand their pain, their motivations, their choices as though we are them. But then Picoult allows her jury to make a decision that can only be made by someone reading her book -- not by a juror witnessing the most bizarre of all trials.The Hartes and the Golds had been neighbours and best friends for 18 years. So it was no surprise that their children, Emily Gold, a talented young artist, and Chris Harte, a bright, motivated athlete and the star of his high school swimming team, would also grow up as inseparable best friends. Emily and Chris, born only scant weeks apart, bonded even as infants and grew up as close together as two non-siblings possibly could be. What Emily knew, Chris also knew and understood. When Chris was hurting, Emily also suffered and shared his pain. What Emily experienced, Chris also felt with a powerful bond of empathy that approached the strength of the almost surreal attachment that fraternal twins feel for one another. It came as no surprise to their parents, their teachers and their friends that their attachment, in the fullness of time, blossomed into a more mature romantic love that everyone around them fully expected would end in their eventual marriage to one another. Not sure about spoilers here. I think I danced around things pretty well, but you may want reconsider your decision to read further in case I messed up.*** During the day: If you have a flexible schedule, you may find it helpful to take breaks during the day to read a book.