Small Great Things

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Reviewed by Omma
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Quick summary: Ruth Jefferson is a Labour and Delivery nurse with over 20 years experience. After a routine check-up on a newborn during a shift, she is told she has been reassigned at the parents request. The parents are white supremacists who don't want Ruth, an African-American, touching their child. The next day the child goes into cardiac arrest and dies while Ruth is in the same room. Someone must be held accountable... The story progresses between the perspective of Ruth, her public defence lawyer Kennedy and the neo-Nazi father Turk.

Jodi tackles the topics of racism, prejudice and white privileged head-on without trying to seem balanced and on the fence. I commend her for writing about issues that maybe her fan-base wouldn't normally come across.

This book is definitely a page turner and literally had me up till 3am to finish it! The drama kicks off in the first chapter and you're instantly drawn in. I felt the ending was a little rushed and a forced 'happily ever after' scenario but she explains she's sort of based it on real people so I can overlook that.
Ruth I found a little unlikeable in the middle because she seemed to constantly flip-flop between 'I've been trying to ignore colour and the prejudice I've experienced my whole life' and 'people are not prejudiced, don't use colour as an excuse!' and so she never seemed believable.

I think if the Author's Note, where Jodi goes into detail about her premise for the book, the research that went into it and why it's important to her, wasn't included, I probably wouldn't have liked it AS much. It's hard to explain, it's a great story, an important message and I respect her for trying.

Anyone else read this? What did you think? This would be a great book to read for a bookclub and start a debate around!