#12 Small Great Things

First of all, it feels like so long ago that I last posted. Although technically I am still in time for this week, just...

Second, this book is just wow. On one of my many holidays in the summer I sat next to a woman on the plane who was reading this book. Being nosy, when she read the blurb to her hubby next to her I paused my Maga playlist to eavesdrop. It went onto my reading list waiting for the day I got there.

I haven't read a Jodi Picoult book before, but I had heard great things.

I will start by saying this book is about equity and justice. Ruth Jefferson has been a labour and delivery nurse for twenty years. Kennedy McQuarrie is a public defender with a 4 year old daughter. Turk and Brittany Bauer are expecting parents.

Davis Bauer was born to one nurse and was bathed and checked over by Ruth. The next day baby Bauer had a routine procedure, an hour later he went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead. In intense grief and anger, the Bauer's move to sue the hospital then, to charge Ruth with murder and negligent homicide.

Now there are a couple of details I've missed out that makes this a little bit of an out of the ordinary case. Turk and Brittany are extreme white supremacists. Ruth is black.

Picoult takes us through the Turk, Ruth and Kennedy's point of view through the experience of the devastating and complex trial. She shows us how racism and discrimination are taboos in the court, and although we claim equality there is still prejudices that are subconsciously sewed into the minds of many.

This book opened my eyes a little bit more, and consumed my thoughts beyond my reading time. Its a bit of a chunky book but moves swiftly through the story. The book shows the personal development and growth of the main three characters all in different ways...I could even say they have an epiphany.

There is one particular quote that I adore, taken from Martin Luther King Jr, and it most definitely where the name comes from; If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.

Hx