[yasr_overall_rating]
A black nurse is pulled from caring for the newborn of a white supremacist, but when the baby dies under her care, she is forced into a battle in court.
Imagine your worst nightmare being hugged by your second worst nightmare. Heck, make it a group hug of all of your worst nightmares. Now you are almost prepared to read this book. What if I told you by the end of this book you would find an inkling of your heart empathizing with someone so horrible, being in the same room with them would make your skin crawl? Jodi Picoult has once again ripped a story out of page one the newspaper and laid the story bare for all to see. All the naughty bits and thoughts you don’t want to think out loud are on those pages pleading for understanding.
Ruth is an overworked nurse tending to the babies and mamas in the maternity ward of a small hospital in Connecticut, content to bring life into the world and raise her teenage son. She has spent her life trying to fit into a world dominated by white skin and prides herself on hard work and strong ethics. Then one day her faith in humanity, and their ability to leave the problems associated with skin color in the past, is irrevocably broken. A white supremacist and his wife request she is removed from the care of their infant son. A post-it note on the babies file becomes the red flag forcing Ruth to see that racism is still a present threat. When the baby stops breathing, Ruth is the only person available to perform CPR. She doesn’t know if she should help the baby and risk her job, or risk her job and save the newborn. The unthinkable happens, the infant dies, and the family seeks vengeance. The only logical conclusion for Turk and Brit, the bereaved parents, is that the black nurse they requested off their service murdered their baby to get back at them for their extreme views.
For the first time in her life, Ruth is faced with the possibility of prison. Her public defender, Kennedy, fights for the opportunity to lead this case despite no understanding of how deep the line is drawn between those living in the minority and those in power. Ruth and Kennedy are forced to learn not just to coexist with their differences, but work together to acquit Ruth of murder one. For Turk, race is the only thing he sees. His life has been built around white power and the need to hunt down and hurt anyone who objects to his white power. His wife, Brit, fell apart when her baby died, which renewed her desire to rid the world of minorities. As the teams gear up for the trial, the question of murder and race become more apparent to everyone involved. The question is, will the jury see this as a simple murder trial or will they see that to some people, everything really is black and white? As with all trials, the gray matter explodes as everyone learns what racism means to them and how will they move on after the judgment is made.
Told in three voices, the story culminates in a powerful and shocking ending. Seen through the lenses of Ruth, Turk, and Kennedy, allows for stark contrasts in human ideologies. Ruth’s sister was the downside of this intense novel. Jodi Picoult was determined to fit in every instance of racial discrimination she had ever heard of, which was painful to the point of overdone. Adisa, Ruth’s sister, is meant to counteract the over-the-line character Turk, but comes off insincere. Also, having Ruth’s mother as a maid for a wealthy white family was over the top. Subtly would have been more effective, but the story is still immensely powerful.
Most authors write with the intent of taking the reader from point A to point B, with very few side roads. They want you to empathize with the protagonist and maybe a side character or two. Their story is skewed to the narrator, his feelings, and point of view. Jodi Picoult is in a class of her own. She wants you to both love and hate every character as she memoirs their good qualities, with equal screen time for their mistakes and unlikable qualities. Her books are never a one-way road, but a network of highways with accidents along the way. The eloquence of the tightrope of human interactions is under the color-tinted microscope as each character realizes their reality is not fact, but their truth. This book makes you examine yourself, which is what qualifies a book as important. There is something to be learned from reading this book and room to allow yourself to grow just as each character does, through the birthing stages.
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Wow…. just wow. Reading your review on this book makes me want to 1) go read this book and 2) makes me sad how bad racism still in in the US. They way you depicted this book makes me feel as if I was there reading right along side with you.