Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

My friend MaryLou offered me this book. Since I really like her, and feel we have similar tastes, I was anxious to read what she thought was a good book.  Because I have read one Jodi Picoult book and didn't particularly like it, I was hesitant. But MaryLou told me I would enjoy learning about elephants, and so I took it.

She was right; this book has a lot of fascinating lore about elephants. These fascinating elephant habits are seamlessly interwoven into a story of love and loss and the parallels between the humans and the captive elephants are amazing. Another thing I really liked was the characters in this book. The first half of the book was captivating because of the off-beat and interesting characters. The story moved ahead in a very enjoyable way.

But... a little more than half-way through, the story took a weird turn, and the ending was completely surreal. I felt like I'd been tricked. I didn't buy the supernatural parts and am sorry it took that turn, and indeed depended on it for the plot to work at all. It's too bad, because otherwise I would have enjoyed sharing this book with others. As it is, I won't bother...