What I’m Reading: Small Great Things

As a reader I was a HUGE fan of Jodi Picoult….HUGE fan.  In fact many of my favorite books are written by her…. Plain Truth, The Pact, and My Sister’s Keeper.

If you haven’t read her books, many have a controversial crime and the book ends with a court room battle.  I love the premise.  She tackles subjects like school shootings…Amish…suicide and the like.  All heavy subjects.  Well then she started changing up her writing a big.  Her books became a little hit and miss for me.  She started adding ghost type elements and for a gal like me, that just doesn’t do it.  I started not reading her books.

Then I saw that she had a new book out. I read the reviews to make sure there wasn’t a ghost theme…I was hesitant but decided to give Small Great Things: A Novel a try.

My free online sources didn’t have this book so I had to use one of my Audible credits to get it…so was it worth using a credit?I am happy to say YES!!  The book was totally worth using up one of my Amazon credits.  The best part is I felt like I reconnected with the author.  This book is on the same format as the first books she wrote and I couldn’t be happier.  Some people want authors to branch out from their original format but for me, it’s not broke, stay where you are.  There were no ghost…no mystic experiences.  It was perfect.

The story happens in a hospital setting.  If you have a nurse or doctor in your family, I bet they would like the book.  There are lots of medical references.  Mine was an audio book so I had Kalissa listen to a bit of it and she, being a nurse, thought she’d like too.

The story deals with racism in a big way…actually in the ultimate way.  I’ll let the Amazon synopsis tell you more.

Here’s what Amazon had to say, “Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.”

Amazon readers give the book 4.7 stars….I think I’d go to 4.9.  The epilogue happens many years later and one part of it hard me wondering how it got that far…but it didn’t ruin the story, just got me thinking.

If you haven’t read a Jodi Picoult book, grab this on or one the ones I have listed above….you’re in for a treat.