Book Review: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult…

This is the first time i’m writing a review for a book on the same day i finished it. That shows you how much it has affected me. Usually i like to mull over a book for a bit after finishing to gather my thoughts but i felt this book has so much in it from page 1 that it would take too long and i wanted to pen down my thoughts in its raw form because it has left me reeling.

i have read several of her books but have never reviewed them. Why? Just because at those times i wasn’t writing book reviews at all. So just for the record, i have read Mercy, The Pact, My Sister’s Keeper, Vanishing Acts, Handle with Care, House Rules (the first one i read). The only one i didn’t quite like was Vanishing Acts, i felt that one lacked the usual intensity i have come to expect from Picoult’s stories.

So back to Sing You Home, it is a page-turner indeed! i was captured by her very real characters and the issues they faced. They were issues i have thought about, struggled to maintain a constant viewpoint/opinion and still seek an answer to – issues of infertility (close friends have experienced this), issues of divorce (again close friends), issues of faith, issues of depression, issues of the rights of the fetus (or in this story, the rights of the embryo), the rights of a parent, and in the forefront of the story, issues of gay rights.

i am a Christian and proud of it. My Lord is my Saviour, my Friend, my King, my Brother all in one. i love my Lord and believe His Word is true! But i have wrestled with loving the sinner and hating the sin, showing God’s love to everyone (regardless of who they are, what lifestyle they choose), yet standing firm and naming the sin for what it is – a sin in the eyes of God. i haven’t in practice had to choose sides – yet.

i’m a little sad that Picoult chose to show how un-compassionate the church can be. i’m not saying her portrayal of the church is wrong. There exist in this broken world churches and people just like in the book but i just wished that she had shown some of the church to be true followers of Jesus’ example of loving all. Maybe just one of the characters, Liddy (sister-in-law to the two main characters) showed some of this great love of God but it was vague.

i’m not going to give too much of the story away or the wonderful ending. So i’ll just give a brief outline. Max and Zoe have tried and tried to have a baby and have gone through so many treatments. She became pregnant. She lost the baby. They divorced. Now she has a chance to try again and build a family. But Max, with his new-found faith and religious family, stand in the way.

The other lovely feature about this book is that it has accompanying music, specifically written by Picoult and her friend for each major section of the book. i managed to only listen to a few because the QR reader on my phone didn’t work properly. The music certainly speaks from the heart of Zoe (who, in the story, is a music therapist). i liked what i heard.

This is a book which will leave you thinking and thinking and thinking some more…

syc

PS: i still am puzzling out the issues raised by this book… and maybe i will always do so till i arrive in Heaven. But i hope and pray that in my time on this earth, i will show God’s love to everyone i know rather than judge because who am i to judge, i am but a sinner myself. My role is to reflect God’s love to the world so that all may come to know Him.