Lone Wolf

If you had told me when I was eighteen that I would be back in Beresford, I would have laughed in your face. Back then, all I knew was that I had to get away from here as fast as possible. As a teenager, I never realized that the thing I was running from would still be here, waiting, no matter how far I ran.

Mistakes are like memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you're avoiding them.

I'm a huge Jodi Picoult fan, so I was glad when I was given a copy of Lone Wolf to review. I also know from her past novels that she likes to kill off her characters in the end, especially one or two that her readers have become attached to, so I read "with caution." Lone Wolf, however, had a different type of story to it, and like most of her books, the chapters were told in alternating voices, which end up strengthening the novel overall.

The Warren family has been estranged for some time. Cara lives with her father, Luke, a famous naturalist who became famous when we went to live with a wolf pack in Canada for two years. Edward lives in Thailand, where has been living for the past six years since he turned eighteen, after an argument with his father. Their mother, Georgie, has a new family now, and lives with her husband and their twin children. When Luke and Cara get into a car accident and Luke essentially is thrown into a coma, however, they must come together and decide if they want him to live - in a vegetative state - or die.

Jodi Picoult always researches thoroughly for her novels, and this one was no exception. The father, Luke, still has a voice in some of the chapters, and he speaks of the wolf world and how it relates to that of the human one. The chapters are also told through Cara, Georgie, Edward, Joe (Georgie's new husband), and other minor characters, and we get to see what everyone is thinking about the situation and how they think the family should deal with it.

4 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this novel for review purposes. The opinions listed, however, are my own.