[Review] Perfect Match

This month's review is for fiction book Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult, which makes it the second book by the author I read, with the first being My Sister's Keeper. I picked it up at the Ng Teng Fong Hospital branch of Dignity Mama Stall on the cheap. (Dignity Mama Stall is an initiative for youths with special needs to equip them with skills to run and manage a stall. Do consider supporting them through book donations or purchasing titles from them in person or through their online store.)

Perfect Match is gripping from start to end and in Picoult's usual style, makes one wonder how far can one keep to one's moral compass when events are not happening to someone else but yourself. The story is especially poignant for me as the questions Nina had to ask herself were questions I find myself wondering too in my current line of work. Having dedicated herself to her work as a public attorney and asking her clients to have faith in the law as she worked to place criminals behind bars, she found herself having to face her beliefs and faith in the law when she was turned from a PA to the family member of a victim.

It is common and easy for us to hold on to certain beliefs and swear by it, convincing ourselves of its unshakeable truth. However we may find those convictions less certain if we are ever placed on the other side of the coin. To believe in the process and justice of law requires that all actors in the process plays their part diligently and even then it is not unheard of to have cases where the suspect walks free due to insufficient evidence, or worse, convicted innocents because the evidence at the time made him/her appear guilty.

Perfect Match is a thought-provoking read on our society's current criminal justice system and begs the questions of what happens when one who fights on the side of the law suddenly finds herself on the other side of it. The only negative comment is the way Picoult constantly switches viewpoint between characters within the same chapter without warning. This was highly confusing for me as I find myself having to re-read paragraphs frequently after I realized the viewpoint was from a different character than that which the chapter started with. Books are as usual available from Book Depository with free delivery worldwide, or Rakuten kobo if eBooks are preferred.

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