My Opinion on Lone Wolf

*Spoilers Ahead*

As an aspiring writer, I’ve read more books than most people have watched movies. Some books were bad, some okay, and some were so good that their spines are slowly falling apart from being read so much. One of the more recent novels I’ve read is Jodi Picoult’s Lone Wolf.

A relatively recent novel, published in 2012, it’s told in Picoult’s signature style, taking a controversial moral issue and putting family members on opposite sides of the debate. Despite the very different debate subject, I found this book similar to other books I’d read by Jodi Picoult, specifically her other book, My Sister’s Keeper. However, while My Sister’s Keeper deals with stem cell research and kidney transplants, Lone Wolf tells the tale of two siblings and the decision of whether or not their father should be taken off of life support.

It starts off with Luke Warren getting into a car accident with his 17 year old daughter Cara. Cara comes out of the accident with relatively minor injuries, but Luke ends up in a vegetative state with little chance of ever waking up. This leads to the question of whether or not he should be taken off of life support and his organs donated, as specified on his driver’s license. Luke’s estranged son Edward is called from Thailand to help make this decision. However, Edward and Cara have very different ideas on what to do with their father, and their mother Georgie, who is also Luke’s ex-wife, is caught in the middle. Cara wants to keep him on life support, and Edward wants to take him off. Their differing wishes culminate in a court case, whose outcome will decide which one of them is given guardianship over Luke and his life.

While I started to read this book for class, I found that, for the most part, I genuinely enjoyed reading it. Each of the characters in this book were relatable through both their flaws and their thoughts, even though I have little in common with most of them. I especially liked reading from Joe’s perspective. As Georgie’s new husband and practicing lawyer, he ends up being Edward’s lawyer later on in the book, bringing up a divide between him and Cara. It was easy to empathize with Joe throughout the book, especially with his insecurity when Georgie and Cara talked about Luke. To Georgie, Luke was her ex-husband and the man she loved before Joe, and to Cara, Luke was the father figure Joe was constantly being compared to, and usually falling short.

I also found it easy to relate with Cara about her feelings of not being heard because she wasn’t 18. Similarly, I was also able to connect with her on the subject of not wanting to take her father off of life support. For me, it was easier to agree her perspective and reasoning than Edward’s.

Compared to the characters, the plot was a little less intriguing. I felt the plot was predictable at points, such as when Edward tried to literally pull the plug on his father’s life, and when Cara sought out a lawyer by herself. Lone Wolf did have a few unexpected twists though, such as the reveal as to why Edward left his family for Thailand at only 18. I found this to be a twist mostly because of the normalcy of it. While there were several hints dropped in previous chapters that indicated Edward left because Luke disagreed with having a gay son, it didn’t quite add up to who I perceived Luke to be. With a father who had gone to live with wolves for two years, I had expected the reason for Edward leaving having to do with that, rather than the more commonplace reason of seeing his father cheating on Georgie.

Interspersed throughout the book were small passages of Luke’s perspective, both from his time in the wild and from his time with humans. To me, some of these passages seemed out of place, but they were still very interesting reads. Some of the facts about wolves were fascinating, if a bit unbelievable. Overall though, Lone Wolf was a good read, and one I’d recommend for people who like reading about moral dilemmas, family oriented books, and of course, wolves.