love and bees

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: On the surface, this is a tried-and-true trope: girl is murdered, boy is accused, mother stands by her son.  But, as one might suspect with a book by Picoult and Boylan, there is a whole lot more going on here.  There are several unexpected twists, not to mention more than a few turns.  Told in alternating chapters, Olivia, Asher's mother, tells the story going forward from Lily's death and Lily herself tells her story going backward from the same time.  Together, the two stories form a brilliant picture of Lily and Asher, together and separately, and of the difference between things that are private and things that are secret.

Are there a few hanging threads here?  Yes.  After making dramatic (re)entrances, both Lily and Asher's fathers sort of disappear.  And there's a lot in here that would, in the hands of lesser writers, be deemed pedantic, as we learn the ins and outs of beekeeping, among other topics.  Instead of feeling like information that isn't really relevant to the plot is being forced on me, as I have in other books, I just found it interesting, like I was just having a nice conversation with an acquaintance.  And I really wish I could have a nice conversation with these characters.  Or their authors.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

heavy-handed

The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction

Review: Maynard's premise in this book is an interesting one. Unfortunately, her efforts to be coy about that premise result only in heavy-handed foreshadowing that really leaves very little to the reader's imagination. Given how much she gives away, it seems that what was really important was not what the big secret was, but how the characters would react once they found out. That being the case, I wonder why Maynard chose to frustrate the reader by giving away almost the whole thing through less-than-subtle hints rather than just telling the reader what happened in the beginning and letting the story focus on the characters and how learning the truth changes (or doesn't change) their lives. There are a few details that are left unanswered until the big reveal near the end, but it wasn't enough to maintain any sort of narrative tension.

Once I got beyond the fact that there was no mystery where it seemed like there was supposed to be one, I was able to enjoy this book. Maynard's descriptions of her settings are beautiful, and I did find myself caring about the characters and how they would deal with finding out the truth. Unfortunately, the lovely prose does not make up for the narrative shortcomings.

FTC disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

too much

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Summary/Review: Jodi Picoult has once again tackled a moral dilemma. Up for debate this time is whether the mother of a girl in need of a heart transplant should accept the heart of the man who will be executed for the murder of her husband and older daughter. And if Picoult had stuck to one dilemma, this might have been a better book. Instead, the book is complicated by Green Mile-like questions of whether the condemned man had the power to perform miracles and a Dead Man Walking-like last-hour relationship between the death row inmate and a priest.

In typical Picoult fashion, there is no clear right and wrong in this story. Shay Bourne, the convicted man, does not really contest his conviction, or his sentence. He simply insists that he must be allowed to donate his heart afterward, despite the fact that being executed by lethal injection would make this impossible. Enter an ACLU lawyer, with issues of her own, who's determined to get Bourne executed in a way that would allow for his heart to be taken, and, by so doing, turn a spotlight on the inhumanity of the death penalty.

Her argument is that Bourne's religion requires that he be allowed to donate his heart in order for him to find salvation. Here is where the issue of his "miracles" come in. When he supposedly makes wine flow from the taps in the prison, divides a single piece of gum among 7 men, and heals the prisoner in the next cell who is dying of AIDS, word leaks out and people flock to the prison gates, proclaiming the Second Coming. Naturally, there are an equal number on the other side who think he's a fraud or even the devil. Whatever the truth of the matter is, and we're left wondering, Maggie Bloom, the ACLU lawyer, uses these "miracles" and some of Bourne's own words to try to convince the court that he belongs to a religion, even if he's the only member of it, that requires organ donation as necessary to salvation. And here I have to give Picoult credit: what other popular author manages to work the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) into a novel?!

Although well written as all of Picoult's books are, the multiple threads and questions keep this one from being as good as it ought to have been. Hopefully, in her next book she will go back to presenting us with a with just one moral dilemma, as she has done so well so many times before.