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The Pact

Audiobook
1 of 3 copies available
1 of 3 copies available
The Golds and the Hartes, neighbors for eighteen years, have always been inseparable. So have their children—and it's no surprise that in high school, Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. And then, suddenly,
unimaginable tragedy strikes, threatening the bonds that had seemed so indestructible.
When midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the truth. Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet—a bullet
that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris describes.
This extraordinary, poignant novel paints an indelible portrait of two families in anguish as they find themselves on opposite sides of a painful divide ... and confronts every parent's worst fear.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      In an understated voice, George Guidall captures all the drama of this melancholy love story. He moves deftly between voices in a novel with multiple characters, cuing the listener discreetly. The plot lends itself well to audio as the narration flashes back to provide background to the mystery that unfolds. Occasionally, Guidall's portrayal of female voices sounds more weak than feminine, but even those lapses seem suited to the tragedy that develops. After all, the central characters endure a tremendous shock in the aftermath of the alleged pact that destroys their lives, leaving them forever altered. All in all, this is an addictive audiobook. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      Picoult explores teenage suicide by portraying its effect on two families. Picoult's story jumps back and forth in time, allowing listeners to piece together the puzzle of Emily's death and to understand one character's loss of a child and another's loss of a treasured friendship. George Guidall brings a wealth of experience to this story, easily managing the switches in time and the many characters he portrays with simple shifts in tone and pacing. Guidall is at ease whether he's enacting a teen love scene or a court drama, baby talk or a mature discussion between long-married adults. His steady, professional narration allows listeners to be fully engrossed in this provocative story. J.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 4, 1998
      Teenage suicide is the provocative topic that Picoult plumbs, with mixed results, in her fifth novel. Popular high-school swimming star Chris Harte and talented artist Em Gold bonded as infants; their parents have been next-door neighbors and best friends for 18 years. When they fall in love, everyone is ecstatic. Everyone, it turns out, except for Em, who finds that sex with Chris feels almost incestuous. Her emotional turmoil, compounded by pregnancy, which she keeps secret, leads to depression, despair and a desire for suicide, and she insists that Chris prove his love by pulling the trigger. The gun is fired in the first paragraph, and so the book opens with a jolt of adrenaline. But Picoult stumbles in delineating both sets of parents' responses to the tragedy. Unconvincing behavior and dialogue inappropriate to the situation (plus, most importantly, the fact that the parents fail to discuss crucial topics) never touch the essence of bereavement and thus destroy credibility. Picoult redeems herself in flashbacks that reveal the two marital relationships and the personalities of both couples; and she sensitively explores the question of how well parents can ever know their children. After Chris is accused of murder and jailed, the narrative acquires impressive authenticity and suspense, with even the minor characters evoked with Picoult's keen eye for telling detail. The courtroom scenes (reminiscent of Picoult's 1996 novel, Mercy), are taut and well paced. Readers may remain unconvinced, however, that an intelligent young man like Chris would not have sought some help rather than respond to his lover's desperate request. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections; foreign rights sold in Germany, France, Poland and Norway.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:760
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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