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Picture Perfect
Cover of Picture Perfect
Picture Perfect
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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper examines the fault lines of a troubled marriage in this “unfailingly intelligent…undeniably literary psychological drama”(Booklist).
To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape—a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and something that resembles love, Cassie wrestles with questions she never dreamed she would face: How can she leave? Then again, how can she stay?
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper examines the fault lines of a troubled marriage in this “unfailingly intelligent…undeniably literary psychological drama”(Booklist).
To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape—a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and something that resembles love, Cassie wrestles with questions she never dreamed she would face: How can she leave? Then again, how can she stay?
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  • OverDrive Read
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Subjects-
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Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
    6.5
  • Lexile:
    900
  • Interest Level:
    UG
  • Text Difficulty:
    4 - 5


Excerpts-
  • From the book CHAPTER ONE

    The first thing the groundskeeper saw when he went to tend to the small cemetery behind St. Sebastian’s was the body that someone had forgotten to bury.

    She was lying on top of a grave, her head pressed close to the headstone, her arms crossed over her stomach. She was almost as white as the seven faded granite markers that surrounded her. The groundskeeper took a deep breath, dropped his trowel, and crossed himself. He inched toward the body and leaned over, casting a shadow.

    Somewhere overhead a gull screamed, and as the woman’s eyes flew open, the groundskeeper turned and ran through the iron gate into the dizzying streets of Los Angeles.

    The woman looked into the sky. She did not know where she was, but it was quiet; and since her head was pounding, she was grateful. She tried to remember how she had gotten there in the first place.

    Sitting up, she touched the gravestone and squinted as the letters dipped and blurred before her eyes. She pulled herself to her feet and balanced against the stone for support. Then she leaned over and retched, clutching her stomach and blinking back tears at the pain shooting through her temples.

    “A church,” she said aloud, jumping at the pitch of her own voice. “This is a church.”

    She walked to the gate and stared at the cars and buses going by. She had taken three steps away from the church before she realized she did not know where she was supposed to go. “Think,” she commanded herself. She put a hand to her forehead and felt the slip of her own blood.

    “Jesus,” she said. Her hand was trembling. She felt for a tissue in the pocket of her jacket, a worn bomber jacket she couldn’t remember buying, and came up instead with a tube of Blistex and $2.24 in change. She stepped back toward the graveyard and looked behind the headstones for a pocketbook, a knapsack, a clue.

    “I was mugged,” she said, wiping her brow with her sleeve. “I must have been mugged.” She ran to the door of the rectory and banged, but it was locked. She moved to the gate again, planning to go to the closest police station and tell them what had happened. She would give her address and she would call…

    Who would she call?

    She stared at a bus sighing at the corner stop. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know the closest police station.

    She didn’t even know her own name.

    Chewing on a fingernail, she stepped back inside the gate, where she felt safer. She knelt beside the grave she’d been lying upon and rested her forehead against the cool headstone. Maybe the priest would be back soon, she thought. Maybe someone would come by and offer to help her. Maybe she’d just stay right there.

    Her head began to throb, a drumbeat that threatened to split her in two. She sank to the ground and lay back against the gravestone again, pulling her jacket close to ward off the chill of the earth.

    She would wait.

    She opened her eyes, hoping for answers, but all she could see were clouds that covered the sky like a bruise.

    THERE WASN’T ENOUGH LAND IN CALIFORNIA.

    He could feel it, beating like a hammer at the base of his throat, this claustrophobia born of the hissing asphalt under his tires and the condos pressed so close they left no room to breathe. So he kept driving west to find the ocean, hopefully before it got dark. He had never seen it. There had only been pictures, and accounts from his mother and his father.

    He remembered stories his father had told him, stories he hadn’t believed at the time, of Indians...

Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    February 27, 1995
    This politically correct Hollywood romance leaves no plotting stone unturned. For her discovery of an ancient human relic, glamorous UCLA anthropologist Cassie Barrett is rocketed to the prominence of a '90s-style Margaret Mead. As if that's not enough, she goes to Kenya as technical consultant on a movie starring hunk-of-the-month Alex Rivers. After a whirlwind romance, Cassie becomes the new Mrs. Rivers, toast of filmdom's beautiful people. But all is not bliss for the newlyweds: Alex's tortured past just won't let go, and Cassie must bear the brunt of his emotional scars. Perhaps attempting to salvage the predictable plot, Picoult administers to Cassie's bland character a dose of adrenalin-pumping amnesia. She also throws in a dollop of Native American culture and a noble savage who skirts the periphery of Cassie's tumultuous existence, always ready with sage advice, spiritual healing techniques and warm embraces. Some rather prettily told Indian legends are added to the mix, but the total effect is wide of the mark. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; film rights to Dove Audio; audio rights to Brilliance.

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    Penguin Publishing Group
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Picture Perfect
Picture Perfect
Jodi Picoult
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