The Pact: A Love Story

Megan Harlan

Picoult suggests the subtle ways in which parents can place dangerous pressures on their children.
— The New York Times Book Review

People Magazine

Engrossing...Picoult's deft touch makes this her breakout novel.

Publishers Weekly

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.

People Magazine

Engrossing...Picoult's deft touch makes this her breakout novel.

Kirkus Reviews

In this brooding fourth novel, Picoult (Picture Perfect) creates an affecting study of obsession, loss, and some of the more wrenching varieties of guilt. It all begins with a failed suicide pact between two teenagers: Emily Gold dies, but the precise motivations behind her death remain obscure. And who pulled the trigger? Her boyfriend Chris Harte, who survives because of having fainted, apparently, before he could kill himself, seems unwilling to offer an explanation. Zipping back and forth through time, the story traces the growth of the long, complex relationship between the kids. When the two families first settle down next to each other, the Hartes and Golds seem meant for each other: Both families are upper-class New Englanders; both the husbands are doctors; both the wives are pregnant, and so in a sense the pairing of Chris and Emily takes place even before their birth. Eventually, they sleep in the same bassinet, go on to develop their own secret language, accompany each other everywhere and, when they become adolescents, are inevitably drawn into a fervid romance. While it seems inconceivable that Chris could have killed Emily, a preponderance of forensic evidence suggests that it just may be. On his 18th birthday, Chris is hauled off to jail and the perfect harmony between the families instantly dissolves. Melanie Gold, unable to accept the notion that her perfect daughter could have been suicidal, focuses her anger on the murderer next door, and, emotionally, James Harte disinherits his son, who's now a liability to the doctor's prestigious career. Chris himself, saddled with a hot-shot lawyer more interested in building a case than in hearing the truth, sinks intodespair. The trial scenes, alternating rapid-fire testimony with flashbacks to the actual suicide, are particularly powerful, and what Chris finally says when he takes the stand comes, thanks to Picoult's skill, as a considerable surprise. A moving story, mingling elements of mystery with sensitive exploration of a tragic subject.