The Problem With Jodi Picoult Novels

Jodi Picoult is a prolific writer. She turns out a couple novels a year, or so it seems. Have you ever wondered how she writes that much? How does she keep coming up with new ideas? Well, here is the big reveal—she writes the same story over again.

Small town, good family, strong values...violence strikes or a secret is revealed...now the protagonist must figure out a way to live in this new unfamiliar reality. That pretty much covers a Jodi Picoult story. If you doubt me, just look at the synopis on the back of the book. They all sound the same.

Then her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence ... and suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family and herself seems to be a lie.

- back cover of The Tenth Circle

Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens - until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence.

- inside cover of Nineteen Minutes

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire ... But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And when a policeman arrives to disclose a truth that will upend the world as she knows it...

- Vanishing Acts

Basically, Picoult reworks the same story with slight plot variations. In such storytelling, Picoult's characters lose their realness. They merely become caricatures of what a true character should be. It's always the same person who appears in each novel. The only difference is in the name and the secret on the verge of explosion. But still, it's basically the same character.

I am currently reading The Tenth Circle, and once I finish it I have made a vow to never read another Jodi Picoult novel. The saying is true—if you have read one Picoult novel, then you have read them all.