Pictures of You

By: Caroline Leavitt

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A tragic accident: One woman is left dead after she and another woman, both running away from their marriages, collide in the fog on a highway. The survivor, Isabelle, is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life but of the lives of the devastated husband and fragile son that the other woman, April, has left behind.

Together, they try to solve the mystery of where April was running to, and why. As these three lives intersect, they are left to ask, How well do we really know those we love - and how do we forgive the unforgivable?

©2010 Original material © 2010 Caroline Leavitt. Recorded by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc. (P)2010 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

“A magically written, heartbreakingly honest snapshot of the people we leave behind and those we can’t let go.... Caroline Leavitt is one of those fabulous, incisive writers you read and then ask yourself, 'Where has she been all my life?'” (Jodi Picoult)

"Caroline Leavitt is a splendid writer at the peak of her powers." (Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winner)

Trite & Corny

What would have made Pictures of You better?

I chose this book based on a glowing review from Jodi Picoult, whom I am a big fan of. Unlike Picoult, this author did not have the gift of developing believable characters whose perspectives were insightful.

Has Pictures of You turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not the genre, but I would not read another book by this author.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I didn't so much dislike the narrator's reading, as find that she did not add any authenticity to the different characters and her portrayal made some of them feel even less likable than a different portrayal might have made them seem.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

There was good subject matter that in more capable author's hands could have been very interesting...

Any additional comments?

Not worth the credit

Anguish and self-recriminations galore!

An emotionally immature woman is in anguish over her marriage and her son's illness. A man is in anguish when his wife dies in a terrible car accident on a day she appears to be leaving him. Another woman is in anguish over infertility and her two-timing husband. Everyone is in anguish! Everyone blames themselves for causing the accident and the boy's illness. Everyone is stuck in anguish for the majority of the book. When one of the characters finally does move on, viola!-- she finds true love. I found this book tedious and sophomoric.

I stayed with this story until the end...

...even though I was sometimes exasperated, because the author seemed to be so well intentioned and ernest, just like Charlie.

All the characters seemed to be perpetually anguished, particularly the child, and no one could move along! And sadly in the end no one was truly happy except perhaps for Isabella.

What frustrated me most was the plot device using the child’s freedom at a young age, poor judgment and true lack of adult care to put him in situations in which he was in danger and almost died a couple of times. That child needed an after school program in a big way!

Too many elements, to much repeated anxiety and pain and I never understood April’s motivations. So many loose ends!

But a hard, thorough try from the author.

meh

I kept asking, "Really? REALLY?" Just not believable enough and just kept going and going.

Not what I pictured

I quit listening about half way through when a 4th grade boy popped in a pornographic DVD, called it "f-ing" (minus the hyphen) and we get a description of Red Hot Enterprises in the laundromat. Maybe it has a good ending, maybe it is a good character study, maybe it will be heart-rending, maybe someone else might not mind hearing so many f-words and profane uses of the Lord's name. Too many writers of modern fiction don't think they can tell a realistic story without foul language and descriptions of sex, but if you would rather not hear it then this one isn't for you. If you want to read other points of view, a few Amazon readers raved about the book. (I wish I had discounted the opinions of the author's students however.) No complaints about the reader.