Book Review: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

About:

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 what 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 Thoughts

If you have been following my blog for a while you would know that I am a bit of a Jodi Picoult fan. This is the fourth book I have read from her having previously read My Sister's Keeper, The Pact and Nineteen Minutes. While Small Great Things was not my favourite from her, it was a good story and a very important one to be told. As a person of colour from the Caribbean it pains me when I read stories that are about racism in any form. 

Ruth's story had to be told in my opinion. Many persons of colour have been subjected to discrimination in the workplace in some form. In Ruth's case she was a brilliant nurse, a graduate of Yale, one of the best universities, living a decent life and yet her co workers and superiors were quick to throw her under the bus when little Davis Bauer, newborn son of White Supremacist parents Turk and Brittany. 

In true Picoult style this book was well written. The most interesting character was the lawyer Kennedy McQuarrie. Kennedy prior to Ruth's case maybe had no idea that she herself was a bit prejudice. She represented most people who are not of colour who sometimes feel that they have no ill feelings towards others because of the colour of their skin. As Kennedy works on the case she unpacks some truths about herself that she never even thought about.

Ruth unpacked some truths as well, one of them being that all her life she had been trying to toe the line, do the right thing (which was the same values she taught her son Edison) but then she had to face the reality that no matter what you achieve in life, society will still see you as you are "a black face". What I admired was Ruth's passion for the nursing profession. so much so that she was willing to go to jail instead of the public going away thinking that she did not do all in her power to save Davis.

Turk, Francis and Brittany represented the fact that there are people in this world with so much hatred in their hearts that it blinds them and clouds their better judgement. 

In all this story was ok. It was worth the read.