Picture Perfect

Written by Jodi Picoult

Narrated by Sandra Burr and Bruce Reizen

Cassie Barrett, a world-renowned anthropologist, wakes up in a graveyard and doesn't know who she is. Taken in for a few days by William Flying Horse, a Native American police officer, she waits for her life to re-appear. When Hollywood heartthrob Alex Rivers shows up to claim her as his wife, she is stunned but still doesn't remember anything.

After she returns to her fairytale existence as Alex Rivers' wife, fragments of memory come back but she senses there is a side to her husband that she can't remember. When she finds a positive pregnancy test hidden in her bathroom, dark memories return, allowing her to piece together her past. Frightened, she runs to the only person she trusts to keep her hidden: Will.

Jodi Picoult's story is a tapestry rich in detail and emotion, a beautifully written novel that will deeply reward, and perhaps inspire, its listeners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Sep 8, 2009
• ISBN: 9781423390688

Jodi Picoult

JODI PICOULT is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-six novels. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the ALA’s Alex Award, the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit, and the prestigious Sarah Josepha Hale Award in recognition of her distinguished body of written work. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children. You can visit her website at wwww.jodipicoult.com  

Reviews for Picture Perfect

[marlene9nl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it. Finished it last night. Finally not a book by Jodi Picoult with a court case. I constantly expected it but thankfully it did not come.
This is a book which I consider an easy quick read. Wish there was a part 2. ;) What to read now?

[e5j · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Lakota Indian background was what drew me to this book, and I found every part of it fascinating. There were a lot of descriptive scenes about rituals, understanding a more instinctive way of life, and for some reason I always get sucked in when Jodi Picoult is writing. Emotional, but funny, it made me want to know the characters in real life.

[lanetz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed this, Classic Picoult for me, could hardly put it down once I started it. I was surprised by the lower ratings. She is such a great story teller.

[dragon178 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Jodi Picault's books depict extreme and obsessive love, and other emotions. Though they make a good read, one is left feeling unsatisfied at the end, mainly because one has to suspend too much of disbelief. This book was particularly disappointing...

[atreic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 I hadn't enjoyed the last couple of Jodi Picoult's I read, so I was pleased to find myself enjoying this one. [Spoilers ahead, as always...] It is the interesting story of a woman in a relationship which in many ways is better than many - her husband worships her, they are passionate, he is a world famous movie star and they are extremely rich - and yet is so much worse - her husband physically abuses her. JP did well here to make Cassie intelligent and self-aware, with her own career and at least one close friend, which makes her role as victim much more interesting and nuanced. The story is grippingly told, starting with Cassie with amnesia, so we discover Cassie's life at the same time she does. [I'm not sure what to think about the Native Americans - it does feel a bit broad brush, stereotyped 'natives on a trailer park, who reject conventional medicine for magic and woo', but then I don't know very much about Native Americans at all, so perhaps stereotyped minority characters are better than none at all?]

[livelylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An early Picoult which I listened to abridged. Her subject is spousal abuse and dysfunctional marriage. Cassie is married to an actor who abuses her. She eventually stops putting up with it. Only three discs. Would have loved to hear it unabridged.

[keycat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Jodi Picoult's books always deal with very real and difficult matters. This one deals with domestic violence. Usually her books really tug at my heart but this one failed to do so quite possibly because I have never been a victim of domestic violence. The only character I liked a little happened to be the main character, Cassie. But I found her very weak. I didn't like Alex Rivers although I did feel sorry for him. As a child, Alex was also a victim of abuse at the hands of his father. This abuse turned him into the man he became, a man full of so much rage which he takes out on Cassie. I didn't particularly care for Will either. In fact, I thought it was sad that he was embarrassed by his Indian Heritage. I did like the book but I don't recommend reading it since there are so many other GREAT Jodi Picoult books.

[seekingflight · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cassie wakes, injured and experiencing amnesia, in a graveyard. She’s later identified by her husband Alex, a famous movie star. She returns to what seems an idyllic life, but there’s something disturbing lurking under the surface. Both characters are portrayed sympathetically, but it’s still a horrifying story. Bits of this felt disturbingly realistic, while others didn't work quite so well for me. Just an aside, I really liked Cassie’s imaginings of a different world where an anthropologist returning with a new discovery could draw crowds at an airport (cf. a movie star).

[booksandbutter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. As usual, Jodi Picoult grabs me from the first page and I can't put it down. I enjoyed the characters very much and thought she once again chose a topic that needed attention and showed it with her usual grace and talent.

[2chances · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Picoult's weakest yet. It's a lucky thing Picoult is such an engaging writer; otherwise I don't think I would have finished this one, the story of Cassie Barrett, an archaeologist married to an abusive celebrity, Alex Rivers. He beats her, she comforts him; she tries to leave, he makes extravagant promises of good behavior; they stay deadlocked for a long time. That's pretty much the story. I liked her surprisingly compassionate take on the abusive husband (don't worry, she does not excuse it in ANY way); I didn't like Cassie's burgeoning relationship with Will, a character who, in his own way, is just as controlling as abusive Alex. And I didn't like that Picoult didn't seem to notice that about a character she herself created.

[steph78_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I feel a bit mean giving this only two stars, as it's readable and has a good go at trying to say something meaningful. It just annoyed me though - I didn't enjoy the style of writing at all, many of the characters seemed cardboard cut outs - which is a bit of an issue on a character driven story, charting the development of an abusive relationship,. Not a book I'd recommend to anyone, though I'm sure it's in part a matter of personal taste and some people would get a lot of enjoyment from this.

[bbellthom · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not one of my favorite Jodi Picoult books. It wasn't a book that I couldn't put down. It was to predictable and the characters were not memorable.

[squishy133 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a little different to Picoult’s usual style of writing. For starters, there was no court case in the book, which she usually uses to get all the facts out. Instead, there was a long flashback to the past that the main character, Cassie, is trying to remember.However, having read quite a few of Jodi Picoult’s books, I would have to say that this wasn’t one of my favourites – it was a little predictable, where most of her books have an interesting twist at the end.All the main characters had interesting back stories, but this made all their actions a little predictable.It’s kind of hard to get a summary without giving away the key parts of the plot, and it isn’t as well written as some of her more recent books, but the story idea was good, although the ending was quite predictable.

[ladybug74 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was another great book by one of my favorite authors. I like how things ended, though Alex's reaction was not very realistic at the end. It took me just a little bit of time to get into this one at the beginning, but it didn't take very long to hook me until the very end.

[jeffersonsambrosia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was honestly a hard book to read, but not because it was bad. The book was very well written. And hard to put down a bit. Alex Rivers and Cassie Barrett are a Romeo and Juliet pair. Alex Rivers is the handsome sweetheart of Hollywood he meets Cassie on a movie shoot..and its a whirlwind from there. They seem to be the perfect couple, and all goes well. But..there's a secret..Alex beats Cassie, and she takes it, and as many do blames herself. Picture perfect was a good emotional read, and it goes through many things. You will love some characters and want to throttle others. If you are ok with the emotions of it, I do recommend this one.

[kayceel_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

-A woman, suffering from amnesia, must rediscover her marriage to a movie star, and figure out why she ran away before suffering the injury that caused her amnesia. Upsetting, reminded me of Here on Earth, and nobody writes as beautifully as Picoult about falling in love. Not as good as Second Glance, My Sister’s Keeper, or Plain Truth, but still an excellent read, and beautifully written. I love how she weaved in Native American characters and ideas, as she did in Vanishing Acts.

[alanna1122 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was really eh. I am actually surprised that I found it in me to finish it. I have never read any Picoult before, but based on the many recommendations I received regarding her work, I expected it to be much more engaging. One of my issues with this book had to do with the subject matter. It is yet another novel that casts in among its main characters a hollywood movie star. I am up to here with Hollywood books and movies. I feel like there is very little fresh to be said about all that - and in this case - there was a small spin on the norm - but much of it was same old same old.I think the ending was a little bit of a let down. but I guess I should applaud her restraint in not making it more sensational and less hard to believe than it already was.The first half to 2/3rds of this book is a real snooze. The last third or so was a little more interesting - enough so that I plugged on to the end.

[leeny182 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a story of an unknown anthropologist name Cassie and her experiences falling in love unexpectedly with hot shot actor Alex Rivers. They meet while he is shooting a movie about an anthropologist in Tanzania and she is there preparing the site for some excavations for her students from UCLA. They fall in love, get married pretty fast and she has to quickly learn how to deal with going from no one to the wife of the most wanted actor almost over night. He is charming but he has some issues, emotional baggage that he keeps hidden from the world. He ends up being very controlling and possessive of her. This leads to him beating her. I will stop there because I dont want to spoil the ending of the book. But she has to make a tough decision about wether or not she should stay or go. I love Jodi Picoult but I will tell you that out of the 14 of her books I've read (15 total) this is by far my favorite book of hers. There are some parts of it I can relate to so maybe thats why. But it kept me wondering what would happen at the end. It was going back and forth through the scenarios and was actually surprised by the ending. It even made me cry, which is hard for a book to do. If you were to only read one of her books I would honestly have to say this is the one.PS- I did skip over all the Indian folklore after the first one, the stories were a little too long and not necessary to get the story.

[jacketscoversread · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I tried really hard to like this book. I usually love Picoult’s books but I had a hard time getting through this one.I did like her use of Indian folklore as a background but I felt like it could have been explored more, that Will’s life was more interesting.Like all Picoult books, I did manage to find quite a few quotes I liked. “How come people don’t do things like that nowadays? You group around in the back of a sedan in high school and you think you’re in love. Nobody gets swept off their feet anymore.” {pg. 23} “He did not know what to say to her; he never knew what to say; he was used to speaking what others had written. He wished he’d learned long ago how to put into words the feeling that if she was gone, if she ever left, he would cease to exist. But he couldn’t tell her, so he did what he always did: he slipped into the character, the first one that came, willing to do anything other than face the limits of himself.” {pg. 65} “Imagine: A world without grudges. A world free of guilt. A world where o weren’t condemned for the consequences of your actions.” {pg. 81}I didn’t have any connection to the characters. I wasn’t pulled in like I am in any other book of hers I’ve read. The kick in the gut at the end wasn’t there, although some might say there is nothing wrong with that.

[karstelincoln · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not Picoult's finest, but still well told & believable. Does not employ her use separate character's voices, which I think is one of her strongest devices. Thus, probably why I did not like this as well as some of her more recent novels. Still worth reading!

[mhleigh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Officer William Flying Horse is new to the Los Angeles Police Department. The job is quite a bit different from his last place of employment, the Indian reservation on which he grew up. As the child of a white mother and Native American father, Will has always had problems fitting in, the white kid on the reservation, the Indian guy to the rest of the world. The night before he starts his new employment, he discovers an amnesiac woman wandering the streets. The two bond immediately, as Will waits with Jane Doe until someone comes forward to claim her - a husband she can't remember, but who ensures her of the fairy tale life they have together. As you might imagine, however, fairy tales are not often as perfect as they seem.Quote: "Jane closed her eyes and tried to conjure a face, a gesture, even the pitch of a voice. She shook her head. 'I don't feel married.'"I am overall a Jodi Picoult fan, but I have not been impressed by the last couple of hers books I read. The plot twists seemed too obvious, the back-and-forth between characters too stilted. This book reminded me of why I enjoy her work so much. She looks into complex situations, complicated characters, and makes all of them understandable and relatable, the "good" ones and the "bad" ones. A great reminder of all things good about Jodi Picoult.

[mrshillreads · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really like Picoult, so I went into this book expecting to like it...plus, we had a snow day--so the setting was perfect for me to enjoy reading. The abusive relationship seemed so real and so plausible. If you want to know why someone would stay in a bad relationship...here's your answer. True, it read more like Danielle Stell than I like..but it was still a good read..one of her best? absolutely not.

[carmarie_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love Jodi Picoult! And although this wasn't one of my favorite of hers, I still have to give it to her!

[fantasma_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another Picoult book, another compelling read, but not one of her best works. And as in Mercy, I ended the book not really liking any of the caracters.And the story itself was predictable, and the final destination of the people.