Sing You Home - Jodi Picoult 

I may as well start this by saying.. I Love Jodi Picoult novels. I read a bunch of them a few years ago and loved the way she uses character chapters to provide different perspectives, for me it gives her novels a depth you seldom find. Perhaps what i'm grasping at here is that she doesn't make you rely on one characters perspective of an event, in showing you two or three peoples take on something you have to choose who to rely on, who you want to trust and maybe even just who's narrative voice you like the best! *deep breath*

Anyway! onto the story, this book has been threaded with music the beginning of each chapter leads you to an internet page to play a song relating to what we have read or are about to read. I'm ashamed to say I didn't listen, as much as i wanted to i couldn't always have access to the computer which made it tough so I decided that on the first read I wouldn't bother. I will next time though I swear! 

So the main voices we meet here are Zoe, Vanessa and Max. We are plonked into the story midway through Zoe's pregnancy and learn that she and her husband Max have been struggling to conceive. Then when she loses the baby their world falls apart... again. That was when I realised that this wasn't going to be an easy read, though when are any of Jodi Picoult's books easy reads haha! I think i read this book in a little over two days. I couldn't put it down and actually enjoyed all the different perspectives, there is normally one that will annoy me and I will want to skip over but all these voices held their own. 

As the story moves forward Vanessa becomes a very prominent character, she is the person who manages to pull Zoe out of her rut, we find out a lot of backstory about her and how she has grown up, we find out she is gay and not too long after we find out she has fallen for Zoe but  rather than confess this and lose her as a friend, something she has done numerous times she decides just to keep quiet. But luckily for her not too long after Zoe loves her back! (yay) So then we are transported to the realms of new relationshipdom which was all written beautifully as these two women worked out how to shape a relationship Zoe's ex husband Max joins a religion, although i'm sure this is a completely legitimate religion personally i think it is quite clear they have come into his life at a time when he is at his lowest and made him feel that religion is the only way out of where he has found himself. (which is basically an alcoholic hotmess).


In short, this book follows the emotional journey of the three core characters, The good the bad and the ugly. 


Well written, totally relatable story! 


READ THIS BOOK! 


Peace Out
x

The Descendants

The Descendants 

Confession time, most of the books I read are not purchased from small independent book shops, or even Waterstones a shop I totally love and have worked in TWICE. No i purchase most of my books from.... Supermarkets. Mainly because they are A LOT cheaper that way so the volume I get to read is much more. At the moment the books I am reading tend to be ones recently made into films or ones that are fairly mainstream, which is fine because I'm not a book snob. 

Anyway moving swiftly on, The Descendants took me about a week to get through, which considering it is quite a small book is surprising! It's deceptively weighty though, considering it is packaged into a book that's just shy of 300 pages it sure packs a punch! So its told from the first person perspective of Matt King, a middle aged dad who's wife is in a coma and who doesn't know much about his kids at all. You get plonked right in the middle of the story and then it kind of works its way out from there filling in any gaps that way. 

Set in Hawaii (yes i had to check the book to be able to spell that haha) most books set in a tropical paradise are so dreamy that from the outset you can smell the coconut sun lotion and pina colada, with this book the Hawaii only serves to prove that, paradise is a place and not what happens when you live there! Anyway I found this book to be captivating, not because it pulled me into an adventure, it certainly doesn't make you feel like you are surfing in Hawaiian waters. But because it pulls you in when this man is at the lowest possible point you can imagine, he is realising his wife is going to die, he has two stranger daughters and he needs to find the  man his wife has been sleeping with in secret in order to let him say his goodbye... does it get worse that? 

Its a book of small moments, feelings, tragedy, laughter and honesty. None of the characters are instantly likable but are all immediately relate able except perhaps the youngest daughter Scottie, who comes out with things that would make the most liberal of parents start to worry about what their daughter had been exposed to.  Aside all the bad things that happen that make this a good book the relationships between each and every character kept me interested! 


In other words its a good read, won't change your life but will sure get you thinking about important things.