Jodi Picoult is a favorite author for me, and although this book demonstrates this author's thoughtful observations and insight into race relations, it was difficult for me while I read it because of the emotionality in it and the way it made me protest inwardly against injustice.

As a fictional novel, there is no flaw in this story. The characters, black or white, are fully developed, shown, and deserving of applause in their depictions. The pace is perfect and the scenes are magnificent, and the novel is wonderful where any assessment of a fictional work is concerned.

On the other hand, if this novel is written with the idea of showing the injustice against one race, it doesn’t seem all that truthful to me. In my opinion, in our time, I have seen prejudice work in many directions, and not only in one direction, as racism shows many faces.

I am sure what happened to Nurse Ruth, the protagonist, does happen in real life, but its reverse also happens. The author touches that idea, somewhat passingly but delicately handling the other side of the coin, when Kennedy--Ruth’s lawyer--visits a black community after questioning herself and finding similar prejudice against the whites there, although in a subdued form, while the novel’s main concern has been quite different all along.

I enjoyed reading this novel greatly, but I wish the extremely important issue of racism had been treated with more concern and from more than one point of view.

author's writing style, as always

is Jodi Picoult, an author of many successful novels.

Read it at your own risk. As good as the story and the writing is, I felt it does injustice to race relations since it deals with it from a specific stance that only reflects a partial truth.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Small Great Things: A Novel   from Amazon.Com!

Created May 03, 2017 at 7:07pm • Submit your own review...