Mercy (A Novel)

The story revolves around Cameron and Allie MacDonald, in the small village of Wheelock, Massachusetts in the Berkshire. It is a town rich in Scottish history where the majority of residents are Scottish descendants, where weddings are ended with the Scottish tradition of a blood vow, where Cameron MacDonald is not only the chief of police but also the clan chief - all of which were expected of him to do. On what seemed to be a most ordinary day turns out to be a most extraordinary day for Cam and his wife of eight years; events on the day will lead them down a shaky path of questions, desires and wants. The 1st turn of events is when Jamie MacDonald, a cousin of Cameron's, commits an act of mercy by smoothing his cancer-ravaged wife Maggie in the Wheelock Inn. The 2nd turn of event is when Allie, the local florist, hires Mia, a blue-eyed exotic beauty with a knack for flower arranging. As Allie becomes involved with Jamie's case, Cam begins a love affair with Mia that is destine to bring his marriage to almost a point of destruction. Jamie tells Allie that a marriage is never "never fifty-fifty" and like him, Allie is the one the loves more.

At points in the book I hated Cam for what he was doing to his wife yet at times so wanted him to find happiness with Mia - Cameron loves her for her free spirit to go places at a whim and Mia love Cam for stability and a place to call home. The love story of Jamie and Maggie is heart breaking. How do you kill the person that is your whole being? How do you ask that person to perform such an act, an act of mercy?

Picoult's writing is like poetry for me and this book is no exception, especially her attention to the development of her central characters. The title of this book "Mercy" has dual meaning. The most obvious is the mercy killing of Maggie. But what is mercy? It is compassion or benevolence. I think this would apply to Allie towards Cam.

I have read many reviews on this book I see a lot of people did not rate it well - maybe the fact that I listen to this book painted it differently for me but I loved the book. Jodi Picoult rarely disappoints me and never writes about subjects that are easy to swallow - and Mercy was no different.

Mercy is about the meaning of love and what it represents in marriage. Cam and Allie MacDonald are the married couple who represent love. Cam is the police chief and clan chief of Wheelock, Massachusetts. Allie owns and operates the local flower shop in town. The MacDonalds of Carrymuir came to Massachusetts in the late 1740s. Cam hadn’t given much thought to being police chief. It was once his fathers duty. It was both an honor and a mark of respect to protect and serve the people of Wheelock. When his cousin James arrives into town admitting to murdering his sick wife, Cam questions his sense of duty to the law. Questions of ethics comes into play as the grey area of morality and ethics rocks the town of Wheelock.

Cam’s moral obligation to his wife gets tested when a Mia comes into town.

This is my first read by Jodi Picoult. I’m sad it’s taken me this long to pick up one of her books knowing she’s written 26 novels. Her writing style is known for provoking the mind of readers with her controversial topics. I wanted to experience that gifted storytelling ability first hand. I started with a book published in 2001. This way if I like what I read I can read how her writing grows and develops over the years. I found Jodi’s writing style to be very informative and compelling. Everyone is correct when they say she provokes the minds of readers. This was the type of book in which I couldn’t shut my mind off from. I went to bed thinking about the topics presented in the story.

Narrator: Alyssa Bresnahan is a female voice over artist who performed Mercy in its entirety. Let me just say when it comes to performing the male character voices in Mercy the sound was much too feminine. Other than that Alyssa did a phenomenal job voicing this book. The best way to experience Mercy was by listening to the audiobook while following along with my ebook. Alyssa performed all the Scottish words and her pronunciation of words was superb. I’m becoming a fan of audiobooks for this purpose not because I’m incapable of reading but rather I’m incapable of pronouncing words correctly. This was an English abridged audiobook. The listening time is 17 hours. I listened at 1.8x speed.

There are three major love relationships all of which go very wrong. These are intertwined with Scottish history, issues of leadership, and responsibility, lots of sex, and a courtroom drama. It's a big project. Of course the skilled author skirts cartoonish risks and pulls this tour de force together in a remarkable fictional compare and contrast opus.

I get the point of 40/60 relationship analogy but forgiveness and accountability for infidelity is a pain that goes on living far more than a mercy killing . The living partner will live with it almost every day whether obvious or not . Trust. Causing someone life long emotional pain from a blatant betrayal holds no comparison to someone ending the physical pain of someone inevitably dying and suffering. The story was morally imbalanced and too sexually intimate for the seriousness of the attempted parallel… in my humble opinion.

Jodi Picoult chose a interesting title for this book, which told two stories. The primary story, which the casual reader would relate to the title, was of Jamie McDonald who smothered his terminally ill wife with a pillow in the small town of Wheelock, MA. He and Maggie had driven there from their home because Jamie's cousin, Cam was not only the police chief, but also head of the McDonald clan. With Maggie's body in the passenger seat, Jamie confessed to killing her. At this point, I expected Ms. Picoult to tackle the question of mercy killing because it was clear that Jamie loved Maggie almost irrationally. Although he claimed that Maggie begged him to end her life, did she? Only two people knew, and one was dead.

Expecting the story to focus on the controversial subject of euthanasia, I was surprised by a secondary story. Cam met Mia, his wife's new assistant at her florist shop, and quickly fell head over heels in love with a woman who had seemed to appear out of nowhere. Allie had not only given Mia a job, but invited her to stay at the McDonald home, where the affair began. Cam jeopardized his seemingly good marriage for a woman who remained a mystery to me. Perhaps I missed something, but where did Mia come from, why did she carry all her worldly goods and her cat in a duffel bag, and why did she appear in Wheelock? These questions were never answered. It seemed to me that she was an excuse for Allie to discover mercy. The story of Mia and Cam got in the way of a potentially pithy debate about mercy killing. In fact, I found both characters highly annoying and wished that Allie had had the backbone to throw her philandering husband out of her life.

I generally like Jodi Picoult's books, but this one fell short for me. The superfluous history of the clan system would have been apropos in a book about Scotland, but it served little purpose in "Mercy." It was never made clear why Jamie came to his uncle's town to kill Maggie (did he expect the clan leader to back a fellow clansman?).

There was too much clutter in a book that could have been interesting, relevant and timely.

About a third of the way through the novel, I realised that I had read it several years ago, but couldn't remember how it ended. Now I realise why I had put the ending out of my mind. It was forgettable. What happened with Jamie was predicatable. It was obvious it was going to go that way from the start. What happened with Cam and Allie in the end was so annoying I wanted to scream. Which was why I had previously wiped the ending out of my mind. The only characters I actually liked and could identify with in this book were Jamie's friends and neighbours, and Cam's mother Ellen. No strike that. She kept quiet about something she saw. Not good. Jamie, he didn't love too much, he was obsessed and that was a little creepy. That kind of love is unnatural. Maggie, nobody is as perfect as she was made out to be before she got cancer, and then I find her pretty selfish to ask her husband to do what he did. (I'm trying very hard not to give away too much!) Mia, she came across as freaky. Who takes a cat away for a romantic weekend? Honestly, I could not see what attracted Cam besides her curls and bright-blue eyes. She had nothing else going for her, she couldn't even cook! Cam, what a self-centred waste of oxygen! Filled with his own importance. A cheater and a liar! I don't care how lovely his hair was or how tall he was, he was a poor excuse for a husband. I disliked him intensely and am furious that Allie...Yeah you'll have to read to find out. Allie, seriously pathetic, goodie-goodie type. This flower is for grief, and this flower for companionship - yawn. Nobody seriously believes it and it didn't help her one bit. Naive, blind, so busy trying to help Jamie she doesn't notice the problems in her own household. She needs a wake-up, shake-up, and her devotion to her hubby is just pathetic. How could she lose herself just to please him? Oh well, while not my favourite of her books, as you can see it did still keep me kind of gripped, waiting to see if the ending would have a twist or two. No twists sadly.

This is the first time I have been terribly disappointed in one of Jodi Picoult's books! I have NO clue what this book was really about. It seemed to be two incomplete stories.

Story One: The social debate over mercy killing and/or a persons right to chose end of life. This COULD have been a very good tale if the author had focused her efforts on this subject matter that seems to be in the news more often these days. I would have preferred to hear more about the two sides and the history of the couple at the center of the "mercy killing" and court battle. I'd have loved to hear more about the jury and their struggle (or lack there of) to come to a decision. What did they base it one? Were there any hold outs and why? There seemed to be a focus on which ones appeared to side with the defendant and others who sided with the state while a few seemed to fall in between but within hours they had a complete acquittal...? This story was completely diluted by Story Two and ended abruptly with the defendant seeing his dead wife...? HUH???

Story Two: Mystery woman Mia strolls into town and the author seems to elude to her having a secret agenda. She quickly becomes involved in an affair with the married sheriff and the two seem to not be able to resist each other. The affair drags on and is slowly discovered by the sheriff's mother and then his wife...whoop-dee-do...and then she strolls out of town with her cat and back pack never to be seen again. HUH? Now, she disappears once earlier on in the affair and the sheriff actually hires a private investigator to track her down...why then and not now? What was her agenda for coming to town and then disappearing and how does this relate to "Mercy"?

Both stories could have been an entire book in themselves with the right amount of content but mashed together into one book, neither held my interest and the ending just...ended...no conclusion on anything.