I’m sorry but I NEED to talk about the ending of this book, so please do not read this review if you intend to read this book and don’t want it spoiled!!

It’s been years since I read a Jodi Picoult book (might be a decade, actually) and my main impression of her is that she’s a writer who takes one topic (e.g.having a child so she can donate organs to her sister) and turn it into a story. I wasn’t very sure what this book was about (motherhood?) but based on the author’s note, the topic is elephants and I don’t think that’s the best topic for a story.

Leaving Time starts with Jenna, a teenager who’s been searching for her mum, Alice, ever since her mum disappeared after a death mysteriously occurred at the elephant sanctuary her parents ran. She finds a psychic, Serenity, and an ex-cop, Virgil who agree to help her.

Chapters in this book alternate between Jenna, Serenity, Virgil, and Alice (Alice provides the POV for what happened in the past, before the incident). Alice, naturally, provides the bulk of information about elephants. I think the elephants are supposed to stand in for humans and talk about the way we love and grieve but I felt like I was being force-fed elephant facts.

But okay, I can deal with elephant facts. What I can’t really deal with is the fact that the book used the same “twist” as The Sixth Sense. And the thing is, it didn’t feel like fair play. It turns out that a good proportion of the world can see ghosts so there were always people interacting with the three of them. I suppose it had to make happen because some of the ghosts are POV and weren’t aware that they died so they need to be able to interact with a few people, but it didn’t feel like something I could have guessed OR like something that I could, on a reread, notice. How am I supposed to know which minor character is a ghost/can see ghosts and which are normal people? I would have much preferred the book cut down the number of POV characters but I guess that wouldn’t have worked because Jenna is a ghost.

Overall, the basic premise of this story is fine and I might have considered the number of elephant facts cute but a bit too forced but I’m really not a fan of the ending.

Bonus novella review

My version of the book came with the novella: Larger than Life, which deals with Alice’s time in Africa before the events of Leaving Time. I have to say that I much preferred this – because of the setting, it makes sense that elephants are an integral part of the story. Plus, an elephant plays a key role in the plot so any fact about elephants is relevant. The story also explored the tensions that exist in a mother-daughter relationship, and while the human-to-elephant comparison also exists in Leaving Time, it makes a lot more sense here because the elephants are properly integrated into the plot.

Featured Image: Photo by Mylon Ollila on Unsplash