Talk about great things! Picoult took a small novel and made a huge impact!
Summary:
Ruth Jefferson, an experienced labor and delivery nurse, is ordered not to touch a baby born to white supremacists. As an African American woman, she's presented with an impossible situation when the baby goes into distress and no one but her can help. When the child dies, Ruth is charged with murder. The court case that follows will prove to be the most important experience Ruth, the baby's father Turk, and Ruth's lawyer Kennedy will ever have.
Verdict: 9/10
HOLY CRAP! This book really surprised me!
This is not one that I would have ever picked for myself (which is somewhat addressed in the novel as well). While Picoult's heaviness isn't generally what I gravitate towards anyway, a book that centers around racism and dead babies definitely isn't one I ever would have imagined enjoying. So when my mother-in-law gifted it to me, I admit I groaned internally but promised to give it a shot. And I'm SO GLAD I did.
The characters were presented so realistically! Which is saying a lot when you have a black nurse, a white lawyer, and a Neo-Nazi. Not all authors can authentically present more than one angle on race, let alone three. And that's not even mentioning the other minor characters. It's a whole spectrum.
Ruth, Turk, and Kennedy were all very relatable. When she started writing in Turk's point of view, it was disturbing because she presents him with such a level-headed. A very messed up level head but still. You know he's wrong, but you can see his logic laid out for you on the page and why he thinks himself to be right. It's really compelling, and a great way (and quite possibly the only true way) to do justice for an issue like race is by showing all sides equally.
How Picoult writes is genius in itself! Her chapter splits, the inspiration on the title, the well-thought-out POV's and the even-better-written characters, and the amazing amount of research she put in to make this the best book it could be has worked. (Seriously read the author note. I'm so impressed.)
I'll admit I took a long hiatus on this one. Part one, while intriguing, felt a little slow at times to me. I would read it over my lunch break at the office, enjoying short snipits and then setting it aside for the day. And then a pandemic hit. And worse yet, I had left the book at the office over the weekend... I wasn't able to go back for "Small Great Things" until just this past week in December, 9 months later (yes, that irony is not lost on me). I had conveniently stopped right at the break before part two. So it was actually fairly easy to get back into.
And I was hooked! I read the remainder of the book in 3 days!
Part two picks up with the court case, which is already bound to be more action packed and climatic just because it's all of the characters coming together with these major revelations. This thing had more unexpected twists than a blind ballerina. That was a roller coaster! I'm still baffled at how much she fit into that remaining 130 pages compared to the first 320. I couldn't put it down. It was fantastic!
This had a lot of topics to tackle and Picoult did so in a way that exceeds expectations. They're not kidding when they say this is the new "To Kill A Mocking Bird". I've never heard someone describe situations and the difference between equity vs equality so impactfully. And it could not have been more relevant for me to read than in this crazy year of 2020.
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