Summary ~ Sing You Home:
In the aftermath of a series of personal tragedies, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people—even those she loves and trusts most—don’t want that to happen.
Sing You Home is about identity, love, marriage, and parenthood. It’s about people wanting to do the right thing for the greater good, even as they work to fulfill their own personal desires and dreams. And it’s about what happens when the outside world brutally calls into question the very thing closest to our hearts: family.
Where to start? Throughout the reading of this book I felt that I would not be able to review it because a lot of the time it made me so mad. Sing You Home is full of heated topics plucked from the society we live in today. Gay Marriage, divorce, the Christian Right, IVF and legal rights. I don’t know if Picoult tries to write from a neutral place but in this book I felt that her writing was on my side of the coin. Let’s just say I was very happy with the ending and if you have read or are planning to read Sing You Home then you will know where I stand. Some characters seem to be written with a heavy hand and others came across as gently written with an authors love. Let me just add that while reading parts of the book where certain characters where spewing words I felt physically ill.
Picoult’s writing is strong in this book. Her character development progresses beautifully, especially with the character named Max. As a reader I felt frustrated, pissed off and amazed at what I was reading. The story is constructed perfectly in my opinion. Zoe, Vanessa, Liddy, Reid, Mama Dara and the legal teams they hire to do battle for them are all so strong and vivid that I forgot at times that I was reading a work of fiction. In my opinion though Max was the deepest, most thoroughly written of all the characters. Max is full of flaws that make him the most believable character but also at times the weakest character I’ve ever read. The care that was taken when developing Max was obvious and appreciated by me. Picoult could have written him completely different and that would have changed things for the story and the characters that live in it. Thank goodness she wrote him just the way she did.
If you like to read a book that makes your blood boil no matter where you stand morally, spiritually and ethically than pick up Sing You Home and read it. If you shy away from hot topics in the media then I think you should read this book. It will make you uncomfortable but remember it’s fiction. If you like to learn things and come away from a reading experience feeling more knowledgeable about topics than pick up this book. I don’t think you’ll regret it!
*Update ~ I don’t know why I was in such a rush to write/post my review as soon as I finished reading SING YOU HOME but in my haste I forgot to include my rating. I didn’t realize I had forgotten to rate the book until I updated my reading status on Goodreads a moment ago! I gave it four stars.
{Rating ~ 4 out of 5}
I have never read any of Picoult’s novels but did get her comic book/graphic novel of “
Planet Books 