Sing You Home

Caution - Only read Sing You Home if you are willing to navigate the very strong emotions surrounding politics and religion regarding same sex couples that it will elicit. This book is not for wimps.

Sing You Home follows the life of Zoey and Max and their 9-year marriage which involves 5-years of fertility issues. During this time, the couple’s relationship dissolves but their embryos remain.

As Max, a failing alcoholic, starts over, again, with the help of a powerful and outspoken religious church (yes, I put the word religious in there purposefully - not all churches are as “religious” as others - read zealot) and a room in his brother and sister-in-laws basement, Zoey finds Vanessa. And much to everyone’s surprise, the two show more fall in love and get married.

When Zoey asks Max for permission (required as he is the biological other half of the embryos DNA), to use the embryos so that she and Ness can start a family, all hell breaks loose. The church hires the country’s biggest anti-gay lawyer and off we go.

DISCLAIMER: There were numerous times during this book that I almost put it down, away, and permanently off my shelf. I am glad I didn’t do any of those things. The plot, in Picoult style, was flawless, inspiring, enraging, endearing, heartbreaking, inflaming, and hate-filled (okay maybe all her books are not hate-filling). It was A LOT. My emotions and brain were all over the place. As a grandmother-in-waiting to a gay child who has yet to find their person yet wants to be a parent, I wanted to throttle Max, his lawyers, the church. But, as a beyond middle aged woman who works in the legal field reading a book written 12-years ago about the legalities of gay marriage, legal rights of embryos, and church versus state, I had to continue. I’m glad I did.

The resolution is as it should have been - there were no red herring zingers at the end and I’m thankful; my heartstrings couldn’t have survived.

Sing You Home should be required reading for those who believe there is only one way to be a family. Thank you, Jodi Picoult, for having the foresight, the inspiration, and quite frankly, the balls to write such a beautiful story. show less

I just finished this book about a half hour ago. I haven’t read something that caused me to feel so many emotions in a really long time. I’m honestly still kind of reeling from the whole thing – the emotional roller coaster, and the happy ending has had me smiling since I finished it.

The story is told through three points of view: Zoe, Max, and Vanessa. Zoe is a music therapist who has been married to Max for ten years, and has wanted a baby since she was a child. Max is a former alcoholic, a surfer dude who owns a landscaping company. Vanessa is a school counselor who knows Zoe because Zoe sometimes works at the school with teenagers. After their third miscarriage, Max asks Zoe for a divorce, stating that he no longer wants a show more baby like Zoe does. A few months later, Zoe has married Vanessa, and they’re living happily and in love together. Seeing as Zoe and Max were trying to become pregnant using IVF treatment, Zoe still has 3 frozen embryos left over from her last cycle. She asks Max permission to use them, so that Vanessa, can carry her child to term, but Max takes her to court – family court, over property law – because he’s now a born again Christian who refuses to have his children raised in a ‘sinful household’.

This is a story told in 2011, a story that honestly feels so real to read. The case is very believable and also echoes something that has happened in the past. Every person I’ve told the plot to told me that they’ve heard of something similar happening, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly. This just adds to the validity of the feeling behind the whole story – Zoe and Vanessa could be any LGBT couple that we know fighting for their right to exist equally in today’s society. While the world has made leaps and bounds since 2011 – including the USA – there are still states, countries, situations that echo what happened to them.

The book made me feel so many emotions – happiness, laughter, anger, and sadness. There are so many beautiful instances in the novel as a whole that just made me sit back and absorb just how amazing Picoult’s writing style is. She evokes so many emotions in me in this book – I found myself literally laughing out loud as I read some parts, and actively seething with rage at others (I had to restrain myself from throwing the book across the room because I couldn’t physically strangle Pastor Clive).

Seriously, this book is amazing. I’ve not read something so evocative in a really long time, and something that actually felt like it was happening to me personally. The characters have such a distinct and beautiful range of voices, the story is well paced and even the side characters are worth investing in. I’m such an advocate for LGBT rights (as anybody who knows me personally knows), but it’s not just that that made me love the book. It’s how Picoult is able to give you both sides of the story in a very impartial way: the story of the ones who are persecuted, and the ones who think they’re being persecuted, but are just assholes.

I can assure you though, it has a happy ending, and even the ‘villains’ get redemption this time.

Final rating: 6/5. show less

This is a powerful, sometimes moving, and very well-written book. It's about baby loss initially, and grieving; it's also about different kinds of relationships, and questions about what makes a family. There are interesting forays into the world of IVF, of music therapy, and of American hardline evangelicalism.

There's much that could be considered controversial, but I thought it was very well handled with likeable, believable people. And an entirely satisfactory outcome, even if one or two minor questions were left unanswered.

Recommended, so long as you don't have polarised opinions on the subjects concerned.

Longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2025/01/sing-you-home-by-jodi-picoult.html

Once again, Ms Picoult has chosen a controversial theme for her novel, and it is an exceptional coverage of a very heated debate. Who owns a frozen embryo after a divorce, and do lesbians make good parents? And what place does a church have in the personal dilemma of individuals? Many questions come up as we read the newspapers and watch TV, and "Sing you home" allows you, at your own pace, to seek answers in your own mind. The plot is sensational, and one I would have never picked as a reason to read a book, but once I turned the first few pages, I was hooked. I read the novel in one reading, skipping lunch, and staying up into the wee hours. The love between two of the characters is instrumental to the plot, but not a turn-off because show more of the way it is handled. I learned so much more in this novel, than I would if I had read a non-fiction accounting of the same themes, because of the the depth of the characters portrayed by the author.
As a plus, a CD of the music mentioned in the book, and the words written by Jodi Picoult, was included in the book. I haven't yet listened to the music, so can't comment on that part of the purchase of this novel, but for anyone wanting something extra, you are going to get it with this book. For anyone who has had to go to court to stand up for their rights, this book will awaken those emotions that get brought to the surface when one has to fight an outside source determined to beat you down. The final chapter is delightful, and brings this sometimes emotionally brutal novel to a full circle of love and parenthood. This book is a keeper and also one to buy for a friend who may have given up on trusting others after fighting a court battle. show less

This is an author that goes for the heart and seems to wring emotions to high levels. In this book Picoult writes of very serious topics including, infertility, invitrofertilazation, babies born too soon, love lost as imperatives change, love found and a new marriage -- a same sex marriage which brings joy and acceptance of each other. As if it isn't enough, enter a radically strict value-based minister who loves the limelight and seems to use people so that he can stand pontificating center stage. Whew, hold on to the pages when you read this book, situations change quickly.

Zoe is an accomplished musician. She has a degree in music therapy and her skills are used when young and old need to get in touch with emotions, or to have show more something to focus on rather than bad burns or chemo treatments. She and her husband Max have unsuccessfully tried to have a baby. She is 39 and tragically, the last attempt with Max resulted in a still born baby boy who was preciously made but not able to live. When Zoe wants to continue to try again, Max refuses and wants a divorce.

Max is an alcoholic who uses great quantities of alcohol to deaden his feelings of inadequacy. When his only choice is to live with his brother and his brother's wife who happen to be members of a church that accepts and teaches literally from the bible, he is grateful for their assistance. When Max had an alcohol-fueled accident and nearly died, he accepts Christ, and the teachings of the devot minister help him in his struggles with loss, inadequacy and the need to get his life in order. And, on the positive side, Max becomes a changed person. No longer selfish and changing with the wind with one day sober and the next flat out drunk, he changes and as he becomes a stable member of the congregation, he enjoys and needs the support he receives.

There are three frozen embryos, and neither Zoe or Max thought of them as property when the divorce occurred. Now, Zoe found someone who loves her unconditionally and wants to have one final chance to have a child. Because Zoe is no longer able to carry the embryo to term, her partner Vanessa would very much like to have the embryos implanted.

When they learn that Max needs to give his permission, they also learn that Max's brother has encouraged him to allow the embryos be given to he and his wife. They too have experienced many heartaches trying to have a child.

In a circus atmosphere, Max, his brother and sister in law, the minister of their church, Zoe and Vanessa, and their lawyer, along with many in the courtroom stage their opinions loud and clear.

The definition of parenthood, love, marriage, commitment are all issues to be brought to bear on the decision.

While I recommend this book, I do so with the caveat that there are many issues packed therin. As I read, it was difficult to determine where I stood and who was "entitled" to raise this child in a solid, loving, successful atmosphere. The author's writing challenges the reader to bring forth their own opinions, with the end result of overload.

And when I finally thought all emotions and issues were brought forth, Picoult ended with yet another puzzle piece in the panorama.

Picoult is a strong author, and where others might fail, she succeeds in writing about a group of people, all of whom have a clear definition of family. show less

As a wannabe novelist, I am fascinated how Picoult’s painstaking research is woven into the narrative about a woman whose life is driven by a desire to become a mother. In less skillful and adventurous hands, it would have been simply that: a tale of a personal voyage to motherhood. Instead, Picoult draws us into the world of a music therapist at work, the clash of values when a gay person comes out, a courtroom drama about the rights of a fetus, and much more. She never resorts to the easy way, to simply saying, for instance, that Zoe’s and Max’s IVF attempts were met with failure and the failures took a toll on their marriage. That would certainly have made it a shorter book—and maybe readers would have been no more the wiser. show more But Picoult doesn’t take the easy way, and we follow the young couple through the details of the procedure— the medical facts, as well as the emotional ups and downs. We even follow the husband into the tiny bathroom, where he must fill a cup with his juice of life, fearful that too little will reflect on him and too much will be worse.

Drawing a picture of conflict between conservative Christian activists and gay rights activists, Picoult never takes a cheap shot, never makes one side unerringly right and the other the face of the devil. Each portrait is sympathetically drawn. The only cardboard, stereotypical character is a lawyer, who even manipulates his client in the service of victory, a victory that is being sought solely for personal aggrandizement. Judging from the number of legal experts Picoult consulted, this guy (or someone like him) exists in real life.

To make Picoult’s yarn even more lifelike, the hardback comes with a CD of the original music that her character Zoe composes. (Paperback readers can download the music from the Internet at no cost.) I find two flaws in the work, the first negligible (and a little embarrassing to even mention), the second a gnawing dissatisfaction that is forgivable when balanced with the enormous accomplishments of the work.

The first is the very thing that gives the writing so much authenticity: the researched detail. I can see the writer’s mind at work, carefully choosing the woof of fact to bring texture to the warp of plot. I would rather it had been more hidden. Admittedly, I was looking for it. The second was the unexplained outcome for a character who was so skillfully written that, at the end, she was (for me) a giant question mark in the center of an otherwise well-drawn ending. I miss her. I worry about her. I want to look her up on the Internet and find out what happened to her. Maybe I’ll find her in another Picoult novel down the road.

In all, a stupendous effort! show less

Music therapist Zoe Baxter and her husband Max, want desperately to have a child and all their failing attempts are starting to take a huge medical, financial and emotion toll on their marriage. When she suffers a heartbreaking stillbirth well into her last pregnancy, it is the final straw for the marriage and Max walks out of the house and out of their life together. Dealing with both these losses, very depressed, Zoe finds herself turned around by the friendship of a counselor at one of the schools she works at, a friendship that turns quickly (perhaps too quickly to be really believable) into a romance. Add to that the fact that her new love is a woman, Vanessa.
Quickly (maybe too quickly again) married in Massachusetts, the couple show more decides to get use the frozen embryos Zoe and Max have in storage to try and have a baby together, with Zoe's new spouse carrying the child. But when she goes to Max to get permission, she finds herself in the middle of a court case, being sued for custody.

While I admit I have not read a lot of Ms. Picoult books, I totally loved My Sister's Keeper...and not just for the amazing ending. So when I read that she had a new book coming out, and the topics sounded so interesting, so timely, I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy. I opened the package and started reading it immediately.
Rarely have I been so disappointed in a book. Not for the controversial subject matter, no, not at all!

On Zoe's side, the characters are almost saints, noble, good, selfless people. Even her lawyer, who will soon be getting a halo no doubt, is just such a nice person. How can you not agree with her? Zoe and Vanessa are so nice, how can we not want them to win?
On the ex-husband's side, everyone is evil and conniving, with totally selfish and nasty motivations. Max is a weak fool, with a reoccurring drinking problem, being used by others for their own, selfish, evil reasons. His lawyer is so loathsome that he only lacks a waxed mustache to twirl as he laughs a creepy laugh, to be complete. Yes, it is hard to portray people we really disagree with as decent people, with valid arguments..so much easier to paint them with a broad, ugly brush...and results in a book that could have been so much better.

I think this books starts by exploring some serious and timely topics that deserve better than the caricatures that the author descends into in the last half of the book. I don't think we get far in a discussion, as individuals or as a society, by just painting 'the other side', whatever that might be, as fools or idiots or evildoers. If you agree with the author's point of view and just want that reinforced, you may like this book and not see a problem. If you really want a fair and comprehensive exploration of some of this issues, something that makes you think, maybe makes you take another look at both sides, you will have to look elsewhere.
Rarely has a book disappointed me so much for what it could have been and was not, because the author decided to take the 'easy' way out. show less