I am so surprised to learn that I can read a book by my "favorite author" and not like it at all. I have read three or four of Jodi Picoult's novels, and each was a spellbinding page turner (My Sister's Keeper). So when I got this one at the library, (Songs of the Humpback Whale) I was sure that it would be a delight. In fact, it has been a big disappointment!
It is just as hard to describe as it was to read. The tale is told through the eyes of five different characters. There is one narrative in there somewhere that is slowly progressing, but it is hard to follow that, because as each person tells the story, there is backtracking, and also flashbacks. The progression of the central tale is just too confusing to follow! The revelations that help you to understand the reasons why things are the way they are come from the flashbacks from the characters' earlier lives. So, odd as it sounds, there are flashbacks embedded within flashbacks.
I guess the lesson here is that even a really great author can produce a dud once in a while. I consider this one a dud, even though it was on the NY Times best seller list.
I went twenty years (ministry years) without reading much fiction. It has taken a while for me to get back into it. (I was too task oriented) Fiction has currently found its way back into the central fabric of my life! As a child growing up in small towns, reading fiction was the main course of my existence! The library is the epicenter of that world!
I've read a few of her books, and each time I say I'm not going to read another, but I do. the ones I've read I like, but did not read the one you just wrote about. Guess I will NOT read that one!
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