A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult
Author: Picoult, Jodi
Title: A Spark of Light
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Year: 2018
Pages: 384
Price: $28.00 (US)
I would like to start by saying that I have an odd relationship with Jodi Picoult's books. Half of them I really enjoy and half of them I don't. For example, The Storyteller (which I even mentioned in my pick of top-five WWII fiction), Mercy, and Leaving Time were all fantastic reads which I would absolutely recommend. But Nineteen Minutes, Handle with Care, and Harvesting the Heart were all, well... not good at all. In fact, I really didn't like them. Whether it be an unsatisfying ending, unlikable characters, or simply a boring story, these books made me question if Jodi Picoult is really for me.
That being said, I decided that I would read A Spark of Light because the story sounded appealing and I thought it would be action-packed, emotional, and controversial. Well, at least it achieved one of these three criteria: it has definitely been controversial.
A Spark of Light takes place in current-day Mississippi where fifteen-year-old Wren is visiting the local women's health center (simply called "The Centre") to get prescribed birth control pills. She is accompanied by her Aunt Bex, who is like a mother to her since Wren's mother left when she was young. While at The Center, a shooter arrives with a vendetta: he is going to get revenge on those in The Center after his daughter had an abortion. Hugh, the officer in charge of negotiation, also happens to be Wren's father, making the whole situation messier.
The book is told with the two distinct sides of pro-life and pro-choice, however there is an obvious favor for pro-choice. While there are many explanations of why someone might choose to be pro-life and to protest against abortion clinics, there is a continuous (not-so-subtle) hint that pro-lifers are religious fanatics and don't believe that women should have control over their own bodies. On a good note, Picoult also seems to put a lot of effort into showing the emotional repercussions of having an abortion, probably to demonstrate that pro-choice women are not emotionless zombies, but people who make a difficult decision in a desperate time.
The layout of this book is also unique in that each chapter regresses in time, starting at 6pm and working backward throughout the day until 8am. Ultimately this means Picoult chose to show us (most of) the ending first, then backtrack hour by hour to show readers what led up to all of it. In some ways this means that the climax of the book was at the beginning, and the rest was explanation. Picoult somehow manages to make a flowing, cohesive story while working backwards in time, however it loses all of the surprise and suspense because the readers know who dies and who survives early on and what choices they will make. Obviously Picoult saved the final scene for the end which she adds as an epilogue, however, readers only glimpse what happens in the immediate aftermath to Wren and her father, leaving us guessing about what happens to the other characters after they leave the hostage situation.
Not surprisingly, this book has mixed reviews. Many readers are offended by how pro-lifers were portrayed, while others hated the backward layout of the story. Even die-hard Picoult fans were disappointed with this novel, stating that the story was weak because she focused to heavily on her political agenda. It's obvious that a lot of research went into this book, as is obvious with all of her novels, but I feel that many of her books are too heavily focused on what she has learned and the facts are not woven into the story in an effective, natural way. It also seems that with A Spark of Light she wanted to start controversy, and hopefully have people beginning to understand the other side of their opinion, but the story aspect of her book lacked. However, I did read it with some vigor and found some parts/characters intriguing. And regardless of the backward layout, there were still a couple of things that I didn't see coming. She must be doing something right since she's arguably one of the most popular writers of modern days. But I doubt she'll write a book in this way again.
Goodreads gives this book a 3.7/5. I feel like that is a bit high, considering the many, many things that I would change about this novel. I would give it a 3/5, and am not likely to recommend it to friends.
Thanks for reading, hope you found this insightful! Feel free to comment any review recommendations.
Up next: The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Title: A Spark of Light
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Year: 2018
Pages: 384
Price: $28.00 (US)
I would like to start by saying that I have an odd relationship with Jodi Picoult's books. Half of them I really enjoy and half of them I don't. For example, The Storyteller (which I even mentioned in my pick of top-five WWII fiction), Mercy, and Leaving Time were all fantastic reads which I would absolutely recommend. But Nineteen Minutes, Handle with Care, and Harvesting the Heart were all, well... not good at all. In fact, I really didn't like them. Whether it be an unsatisfying ending, unlikable characters, or simply a boring story, these books made me question if Jodi Picoult is really for me.
That being said, I decided that I would read A Spark of Light because the story sounded appealing and I thought it would be action-packed, emotional, and controversial. Well, at least it achieved one of these three criteria: it has definitely been controversial.
A Spark of Light takes place in current-day Mississippi where fifteen-year-old Wren is visiting the local women's health center (simply called "The Centre") to get prescribed birth control pills. She is accompanied by her Aunt Bex, who is like a mother to her since Wren's mother left when she was young. While at The Center, a shooter arrives with a vendetta: he is going to get revenge on those in The Center after his daughter had an abortion. Hugh, the officer in charge of negotiation, also happens to be Wren's father, making the whole situation messier.
The book is told with the two distinct sides of pro-life and pro-choice, however there is an obvious favor for pro-choice. While there are many explanations of why someone might choose to be pro-life and to protest against abortion clinics, there is a continuous (not-so-subtle) hint that pro-lifers are religious fanatics and don't believe that women should have control over their own bodies. On a good note, Picoult also seems to put a lot of effort into showing the emotional repercussions of having an abortion, probably to demonstrate that pro-choice women are not emotionless zombies, but people who make a difficult decision in a desperate time.
The layout of this book is also unique in that each chapter regresses in time, starting at 6pm and working backward throughout the day until 8am. Ultimately this means Picoult chose to show us (most of) the ending first, then backtrack hour by hour to show readers what led up to all of it. In some ways this means that the climax of the book was at the beginning, and the rest was explanation. Picoult somehow manages to make a flowing, cohesive story while working backwards in time, however it loses all of the surprise and suspense because the readers know who dies and who survives early on and what choices they will make. Obviously Picoult saved the final scene for the end which she adds as an epilogue, however, readers only glimpse what happens in the immediate aftermath to Wren and her father, leaving us guessing about what happens to the other characters after they leave the hostage situation.
Not surprisingly, this book has mixed reviews. Many readers are offended by how pro-lifers were portrayed, while others hated the backward layout of the story. Even die-hard Picoult fans were disappointed with this novel, stating that the story was weak because she focused to heavily on her political agenda. It's obvious that a lot of research went into this book, as is obvious with all of her novels, but I feel that many of her books are too heavily focused on what she has learned and the facts are not woven into the story in an effective, natural way. It also seems that with A Spark of Light she wanted to start controversy, and hopefully have people beginning to understand the other side of their opinion, but the story aspect of her book lacked. However, I did read it with some vigor and found some parts/characters intriguing. And regardless of the backward layout, there were still a couple of things that I didn't see coming. She must be doing something right since she's arguably one of the most popular writers of modern days. But I doubt she'll write a book in this way again.
Goodreads gives this book a 3.7/5. I feel like that is a bit high, considering the many, many things that I would change about this novel. I would give it a 3/5, and am not likely to recommend it to friends.
Thanks for reading, hope you found this insightful! Feel free to comment any review recommendations.
Up next: The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
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