Book Review: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Title: Small Great Things

Author: Jodi Picoult

Series/Standalone: Ruth Jefferson (Book #1)

Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary

Pages: 480

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Year Published: 2016

Format: Audiobook

"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 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."

My Rating: 4.5/5

I'm going to start this review by saying that this is not written by a black author. I think that is an important note to make and that is why it was docked one point. Not because I don't think that people can't write from other perspectives rather than their own, but I think that it could be offensive to those in the black community.  I do think that this book was very interestingly written from the perspectives of Ruth (a black labour and delivery nurse), Turk (a white supremacist) and Kennedy (a white public defender) and how their lives combine and their views on the world morph. It brings up the subject of not being able to see the white supremacy culture that is present in our day to day lives when you have the privilege of not having to take notice of it. I do think that the ending statements were vital to the enjoyment of this book. The author took time to do research, speak to those who have had the experience where she had not and had input from the black community to be sure that she was capturing the story to the best of her ability.

Thanks for reading,

Sidny