I hate Americans. I hate the way they think they are (or ought to be) the greatest country in the world. I hate that they define Trump as the leader of the free world and I hate their self-righteousness as liberators of oppressed countries. Which is why I hate The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult. We start off with the blandest of bland protagonist, cookie-cutter pretty girl with a scar and a shameful past. She’s also a baker, because she wants to bake all night to […]
Not Any Great Things
I’ve never read anything by Jodi Picoult. Her stuff always seemed a little cheesy to me. But, one of my book clubs is reading Small Great Things this month so I gave it a go. I was right. I hate read this in its entirety and you’ll enjoy my rambling, disconnected diatribe on why it sucked. Small Great Things is the story of Ruth Jefferson, a 40-something African-American nurse in New Haven, CT; she is a 20-year veteran of the L&D ward and quite good […]
Not-so Perfectly Matched
Let’s just start off by saying that Jodi Picoult isn’t my favorite author, but sometimes she makes you think, and sometimes, she can put both sides of an argument on the table in a narrative form that can be somewhat entertaining. Picoult is sort of a guilty pleasure for me, except I rarely enjoy it, and Perfect Match was no exception. While it is meant to be a gripping and tense narrative about the explosion of lives after the molestation of a small boy […]
Jodi Picoult’s racism book . . . I have thoughts.
I’ve decided not to rate this book because my thoughts are so conflicted about it, but I do want to say some things. This is a book about a black nurse being prohibited from treating the newborn son of a white supremacist, and when the baby dies, he accuses her of murdering his son. I’ve never read a Jodi Picoult book before, because her books have always seemed like they were Issue Books, designed to be manipulative in a way that emphasizes the subject matter […]
Leaving Time
Wow! While I was reading this book, I was trying to figure out what exactly happened ten years ago. When I got to the end, I was surprised by what happened, yet it still made sense with the story. Definitely not what I was expecting! In “leaving time” we follow the story of Jenna. She is a thirteen year old girl living with her grandmother. She has a very good memory and her earliest memory is from when she is barely a year old. Jenna believes […]
Jodi Picoult Does Racism
Jodi Picoult is one of those authors I think of as “easy reading.” Her books are written in a way where thing are pretty well laid out for the reader. She does tackle topics that can be controversial or morally ambiguous but does it in a gentle way where she’s not alienating most readers. I found out that my mom’s book club was reading this book and purchased a copy for her, and figured I would read it myself. The book is the story of […]