Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult

KEEPING FAITH

ISBN -  9780060878061
FIRST PUBLISHED - 2006
PAGES - 502
GENRE - Fiction
BINDING - Paperback

AUTHOR - Jodi Picoult

BEST-SELLERS - My Sister's Keeper, Salem Falls, Sing You Home

SYNOPSIS - [From the back cover]

When the marriage of Mariah White and her cheating husband, Colin, turns ugly and disintegrates, their seven-year-old daughter, Faith, is there to witness it all. In the aftermath of a rapid divorce, Mariah falls into a deep depression - and suddenly Faith, a child with no religious background whatsoever, hears divine voices, starts reciting biblical passages, and develops stigmata. And when the miraculous healings begin, mother and daughter are thrust into the volatile center of controversy and into the heat of a custody battle - trapped in a mad media circus that threatens what little stability the family has left.

QUOTES - 

“The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatly wrapped lies”  

“Sometimes you can see things happen right in front of your eyes and still jump to the wrong conclusions.”  

“This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder”  

“What's worse ...?The devil you don't know ... or the devil you do?”  

“If it is possible to die of grief then why on earth can't someone be healed by happiness?” 

FL Speak - Remember what I said about Jodi Picoult? Well I do. Do not pick her up unless you know you're going to be shaken to your roots and probably stay up all night wondering what the heck did you just read.

Well, I threw caution to my own advice and picked her book up. Again. 3 books in as many months and now am numb. A 4th book is calling me from the shelf above my head. So far, I'm resisting. So far.

What to expect in a Picoult novel? A broken family, legal stuff and a whole lot of unbelievable awesomeness that you cannot put down. The more tragic and complex a plot is, the more Picoult writes it better. In this, we have an ass cheating on his wife. Wife finds out and the guys moves out. Its here that the story truly begins. Faith, their seven-year-old daughter watches her dad come out of the shower with another woman. She's seven, she doesn't understand. But she knows that her mom is terribly upset. Few days later, she makes an invisible friend. Mariah, her mom is worried. [I would be too, unless the friend was a tiger like Hobbes]. Nevertheless, doctors assure her that a child may seek solace in an imaginary friend and it is completely natural. What's unnatural is when she starts reading from the Bible. Something, that she never read before.

Meanwhile, Ian is on a country wide tour disproving anything that has to do with God. And then he hears about little Faith who talks with God. A God who is a female.

Bam! People start flocking to Mariah's house. Mariah still tries to act normal until the day when her daughter brings back her grandmother back from the dead. One miracle after another and Faith starts showing signs of stigmata.

With Ian trying to prove it a hoax and her ex-husband, Colin trying to take Faith away on grounds of Mariah being mentally unstable, the mother-daughter duo must face a trial by fire and more to survive the coming storm. And maybe God won't be enough this time for a miracle.

Hell! I should stop now! Lest I give away any major spoilers. Let me tell you one thing though. Faith is utterly adorable. The last paragraph literally blew me away. I had to read it thrice! THRICE!! And I was still left shaking with goosebumps all over me. Read it! READ THIS BOOK!

My Rating - 4.5/5 stars

PRICE - INR 350/-