My first Jodi Picoult novel, but definitely won't be my last. 
 Initially, I was really only enjoying 3/4 of this book, but that last quarter does get so much better towards the end. I'll explain: 'Leaving Time' is told through four different characters, each chapter a different perspective. 
 There's Jenna: A 13 year old girl living with her grandmother, desperate to find out what happened to her mother, Alice, who disappeared from hospital 10 years ago after an accident in the elephant sanctuary they were living in injured her and killed another caregiver. 
 There's Serenity: A psychic whose help Jenna enlists, who hasn't had a true psychic moment in years after being publicly disgraced and basically telling her 'spirit guides' to eff off. 
 There's Virgil: An ex-cop who worked the elephant sanctuary case before, a few years later, giving in to his demons and calling it all quits to become a struggling, alcoholic PI whose help Jenna also enlists. 
 And then there's Alice: An elephant researcher and Jenna's vanishing mother. Her chapters take place in the past compared to the other characters, beginning from when she was a child and leading up to the accident, providing more clues (and questions) as to what happened along the way. 
 At first, I enjoyed reading Jenna's, Serenity's and Virgil's chapters but honestly found Alice's a bit tedious. There was just so much elephant information in there. I mean, I like elephants as much as the next guy (unless that guy is Jodi Picoult, apparently) and I do understand it was all very symbolic and metaphoric (there was a 
 lot about elephant mothers, and losing/leaving their calfs, etc) but it got a bit much. I skim read a lot of her chapters. HOWEVER the further into it I got, the more exciting her chapters became until I couldn't put it down. 
 Overall I enjoyed this very much.