I could not resist starting the review by telling you that Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult deserves 5 out of 5 stars from me, and if the scale allowed it, I would happily go to 10/5 or beyond. The characters, the story idea, the way it all comes together, the writing style, and the beautiful prose that pulled me into reflecting on my own life were all top tier. Now that I have poured out my excitement in the short version, let’s get into more detail about why I loved it so much.
It begins with Eloise Owens, the daughter of an evangelical reverend. Later she becomes Eloise Ambrose, an artist and a wife, and then she becomes Georgia Gilligan. Somewhere along the way, she receives a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder and postpartum psychosis. Postpartum psychosis can twist a person’s grip on reality, bringing hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. It also raises the risk of self-harm, suicide, or harming a baby. Afraid of hurting her daughter, Eloise makes the heartbreaking choice to leave.
Years later, her daughter is about to have a child of her own, and Eloise learns that postpartum psychosis can be passed down genetically. Georgia aka Eloise, does not want her daughter to go through what she went through, so she has to figure out how to get back into her daughter’s life and protect her and her future grandchildren.
When I read the synopsis, I read the line about taking risks to protect the people we love, and I did not expect that it turned out to mean walking away from an entire life, and it happens more than once.
The twists are one of the charms of Hollow Bones. They are scattered throughout the story, some arriving right when I expected them and others catching me completely off guard. As I neared the end, I thought I was done with the twists and that the last few pages would only wrap up the story. Then another surprise landed. Just when I settled back in, there was one more. I loved being kept on my toes right until the last pages.
Between all that tension, I also enjoyed the smart banter between the characters, especially Molly and Jesse. It is sweet, witty, and a lot of fun to read, and it added some lightness to a story that carries very heavy themes.
I also found myself deeply invested in the feelings of every character in the book. Picoult has a real gift for writing emotion and building characters who feel fully alive, and that is a big reason this book got under my skin.
Hollow Bones is emotional, twisty, thoughtful, and beautifully written. If you enjoy family stories with big questions about love, sacrifice, and mental health, you have to put this one at the top of your list of books to read.
My Favorite Bits
- It wasn’t that Jesse was overly fearful. It was that life is such an unlikely miracle, and he wanted to protect it.
- Look, I’m immature for my age and you’re clearly an old soul. We could meet in the middle
- There are patterns we have worn like ruts into our lives. It’s much easier to tell ourselves we are moving forward, and not in circles.
- It’s funny, isn’t it? All the lives we don’t live.”
- Like the Devil, I contain multitudes.
- I remind myself that not all stories end happily.
- In one little human life, there are so many moments that shatter and remake you. The cracks become so ubiquitous, it’s hard to imagine that once, there was a whole, unbroken version of you.
- We reinvent people to make them fit what we want to believe about them.
- I am starting to wonder if joy and grief aren’t opposites, but rather flip sides of a single coin. The only reason you can recognize one is because you’ve felt the other.
- When liars tell a story, the new version becomes clearer and more real in their minds, until they actually believe it’s true.
- I think we all evolve over the course of our lives. We are a child, an adult, a parent. We painstakingly remake ourselves from students into professionals. We accumulate labels: daughter, wife, widow, orphan. We become mirrors for some people, and magnets for others. We get polished and sanded by our encounters with the world. Nobody leaves this life the same way they started.
- As much as we want the world to be good, it isn’t. It is hard and spiky and unrelenting. Terrible things happen to people who don’t deserve them; good things come to those who do wrong.
- Sometimes you get a second chance. But no one tells you how brief it may be.
- Something surprisingly beautiful might be born from the bones of a disaster. It may be the juxtaposition of horror and art, but it is always striking: a crocus after a blizzard; a rainbow in the eye of the hurricane; a vaccine in the throes of a pandemic. A survivor, when everyone else is lost.
Something surprisingly beautiful might be born from the bones of a disaster. It may be the juxtaposition of horror and art, but it is always striking: a crocus after a blizzard; a rainbow in the eye of the hurricane; a vaccine in the throes of a pandemic. A survivor, when everyone else is lost. A relationship, when you never expected to have one at all.
- Love, I think, is like any other energy. It can’t be destroyed. It can only come back to you, when you least expect it.
- I remind myself what a privilege it is to grieve someone. It means that you loved them thoroughly. It means that through time and space, you refuse to let them go.
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publication date: 15 September 2026
Number of pages: 464 pages
Leave a Reply