REVIEW: Small Great Things - Jodi Picoult

People ask me how I pick books to read – do I look at the Bestsellers list? Do I look at Goodreads recommendations? Do I look at what other book bloggers are spazzing over? I do all of the above, but more often than not, I refer to a short list of writers whose releases provide enough and more literary satisfaction for me and ensure I’m well fed. Picoult leads this list.

Her books compulsorily have three ingredients: a plot that mandates a tissue box by your side, a writing style that gives you the benefit of walking in the shoes of different characters to look around and judge for yourself but most importantly, characters that can’t be classified as good or evil – in the end, no one is blameless. Everyone is human.

Picoult gets in my head and confuses with my ideologies. This is also why she’s one of the writers I hate the most. Her books always tackle subjects that are to be debated over tea, (possibly) in raised voices at book clubs, and keep you up at night wondering if the characters made the wisest choices and had you been in their place, would you have done it any differently. Needless to say, when I heard she had a book coming out about racism in contemporary society, I confidently dropped big bucks without even pausing to look at what everyone had to say about it.

I hope the panda was a nice touch

Confession #1: I was in a reading slump. You can verify that by merely looking at the date of publication of my previous post on this blog. Maybe I still am in a reading slump – I’m unravelling a little at the edges. But I read this book from start to finish and I consider that an achievement.

Confession #2: I am not the best person to judge this book, and I won’t pretend to be one either. I have never stepped foot in the US, I am Indian and usually navigate in predominantly Indian circles. But, in case this is news for you, racism is not exclusive to multi-ethnic societies. You’d be surprised at how widespread, silent and invisible racial discrimination actually is and I am no stranger to it.  But, as usual, I digress.

I loved her choice of PoVs: the victim, the lawyer and the white supremacist – expected, but still commendable – because warping reality into what might make logic for a douchebag requires genius and intensive research. I dreaded reading Turd’s Turk’s PoV chapters because it felt like sliding underneath the slimy skin of a monster. This isn’t my first time: Amy in Gone Girl, and Alfred in Salt to the Sea helped me mentally steel myself against Turk’s viciousness and feel pity for the likes of him. You can never justify their actions, but you can understand them.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ruth or Kennedy or Turk that intrigued me. It was Adisa. Adisa is such a solid character – so very real – in her blunt stubbornness, her own racist inclinations – a lot of spice with a dash of sugar. I wish Picoult wrote Book #0.5 from Adisa’s eyes – I want to know if she really sees the world in black and white or in Technicolor but pretends otherwise. I was especially impressed by how she weaved the past and the present in her narrative, not jarring against each other, but providing the other a context for us to understand better.

This book really messed with my head – I forged through the constant volley of questions thrown at me, taking breaks in between (you can’t read this at a stretch, nope) to mull over the answers and maybe pretend like I didn’t know them. And as I drew near the end, I began to dread the signature Picoult twist (usually someone you least expect and care about the most drops dead) and I wasn’t disappointed.

Another thing I love about Picoult is the copious amount of research she dedicates into her work. I despise inaccuracies or misrepresentation, especially when you’re dealing with sensitive matter, and this book wouldn’t have been easy for her to write. A white woman trying to voice the discriminated? It would have been intimidating, considering that she knows what she’s setting herself up against. But she did it, anyways.

Most of all, I loved the title. Small Great Things, is a reference to a Martin Luther King quote, like she explains in her Author’s Note. The plot is essentially a quest for a greater victory, but the actual greatness of the novel was in the small victories. When the father held his faceless newborn. When Ruth touched the baby. When Kennedy understood what racism actually means. Small great things like that.

VERDICT: Just do yourself a favour and read it please.

P.S. Miss Picoult, if you're reading this, thank you for this book. Also a huge thank you for the epilogue which restored my faith in humanity. 

Celebrating Women Everywhere | International Women's Day

I’d wanted to do this post for a long time now. Each year, March 8 would come and go, escaping my notice. FYI, I don’t live my life knowing what day today is. I deign to burden myself with such trivial information only when I’ve got no way around it. Illustrious examples include exam schedules and birthdays of best friends who are capable of burying me alive.

But I digress. (I really should make that my tagline.)

Here is a prized list of books (off the top of my head, thank you college-life) that celebrates women and shows us exactly what they are capable of.

The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Oh hell yes. I will not oblige you by giving you a description of this book. If you haven’t even heard of this book by now - ye who hath been living under a rock, rectify that mistake pronto. And for those of you who have heard of it but couldn’t be bothered to read it:

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

A girl whose mother died when she was little runs away with their Black maid (who’s the only mother figure she’s ever known in her life) to escape her father (and the pissed-off racists), right into the arms of a sisterhood. There she is introduced to the secret world of bees, the Black Madonna and her mother. I love this book to shreds, btw. This had so much potential to turn into yet another civil-rights drama, but it is just a backdrop to flaunt the strength of women.

The Invention of Wings – Sue Monk Kidd

It really is about the inventions of wings in America before the abolition of slavery. It’s about two sisters as abolitionists and feminists and how they plunged ahead, despite the criticism they faced, even from fellow abolitionists. Bear in mind this is a loose account of the Grimke sisters, so no sceptics, these women aren’t fictional.

Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire – Elizabeth Wein

These books are a bust for traditional tropes of delicate, fragile women. This book celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood even under the direst of circumstances. How the love for your best friends and the love for your homeland can equip you with powers you didn’t know you could have. Fair warning – it’s a roller-coaster ride, and not for the faint-hearted.

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Two women. Two different generations. Married to the same man in a war-torn Afghanistan. The bonds between them morph between rivalry, mother-daughter, and sister-sister. The beautiful yet incredible thing about this book it shows just how much a woman is willing to sacrifice because of the love for her family. Again, I’m warning you to keep a huge box of tissues at the ready.

Sold – Patricia McCormick

A thirteen-year-old Nepali girl gets sold for 800 rupees by her stepfather into a prostitution ring in India. Lakshmi happily goes along with “Auntie” thinking about the tin roof she can buy her mother with the money she gets by working as a maid in “The City”. This novel traces her loss of innocence with a narration that doesn’t give a lot of morbid details but is still harrowing. McCormick’s accounts of the shady underworld of prostitution will leave you livid at the injustice of it, and in wonder of the women who do more than just survive through it. How they stay even when there’s a chance of escape because staying means their families get to eat.

You have to fool yourself into believing that the things described in this book don't really happen to finish reading it.

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

A book that has survived the wrath of many narrow-minded people; a book that celebrates femininity in all its glory. A book that doesn’t shy away from saying the things that have to be said.

Out of the Easy – Ruta Sepetys

Screw it. I just tried to write a three-line-pitch without making it sound synoptic. What do I love about this book? A whole brothel full of prostitutes showering love on a seventeen-year-old girl in search for some answers. I have never seen so many women of so many different shapes and personalities. But they all equal in their capacity to love.

Saving Francesca – Melina Marchetta

At first glance, this book may not seem like a prime candidate for a seating on this list. It’s about a gang of badass girls in a boys’ school and how gradually they run the place.

God, I love this book.

The Seven Realms – Cinda Williams Chima 

A fantasy world run by a matriarchal government. Plotsy, shippity, and all things addictively nice. Need I say more?

one Girl – Gillian Flynn

I am including this book in the list because the list lacked some good female psychopaths. Who ever said girls were sugar and spice and all things nice? Heads up, female psychopaths are just as bad as their male counterparts. You get on their bitch-side, heaven help you.

A Song of Ice and Fire – George R R Martin

Daenerys. Arya. Cat. Sansa. Cersei. Don’t tell me your knees won’t give in front of these women who are capable of kicking your ass.

HAIL MOTHER OF DRAGONS

We Once Strangled Words

I remember a boy,

Afraid of shadows,

Tucked in my sari,

Sleeping to my lullabies.

I remember a boy,

Who deemed roti worthy,

To be eaten only if,

Fed by my fingers.

I remember a boy,

Proudly,

Courageously,

Holding the hand of a girl.

I remember a man,

Guiding me across the,

Threshold strewn with,

Flowers that would wilt.

I remember a man,

Who slept with a bottle,

That kidnapped the man,

Who’d once smiled shyly.

I remember a man,

Sneering at the crumpled,

Notes I had hidden,

And the welts I caressed.

I remember them,

The man and the boy,

Trading looks of scorn,

At the shiny TV girls.

I remember them,

The boy and the man,

Shouting at me, shouting at me,

But I’d stopped listening.

I remember them,

Veiling their surprise,

Behind pitiful faces,

On the other side of the car window.

We remember the stories,

Sung by wrinkled lips,

Hidden under whiskers,

That doomed us to cages.

We remember the smiles,

On the faces of the demons,

As they stole our dreams,

And replaced them with screams.

We remember the words,

That we once strangled,

But when they fought back,

We let them breathe.