When I refer to Jodi Picoult's work as "trashy fiction for snobs," I mean it as a compliment. True, her books border on formulaic (contentious topic + multiple voices + courtroom drama + final plot twist = happy ending) but she does write engaging prose about current, controversial issues.
Sing You Home is Picoult's eighteenth novel (so she's doing something right!) and the fifth that I've read. It centers around music therapist Zoe Baxter who, in the span of six months, has a miscarriage, gets divorced, falls in love with her female best friend, remarries and fights in court for the rights to her own embryos. Geez, I thought I was busy baking, running, walking the dog and raising an infant!
Predictable? Slightly. Corny? Absolutely. But also thought-provoking: at what point do two cells become an "unborn child?" Can a middle ground exist between atheism and fundamentalism? What does it mean to be a parent? And, perhaps most interestingly, how does one explain the healing power of music? After all, "there is no evolutionary context within which people's response to music makes sense...the only way to be moved by the spirit, so to speak, is to have one in the first place."
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