Songs of the Humpback Whale

3.5 stars

Jane and Oliver have been married for 15(?) years, and they were together longer than that. Their daughter Rebecca’s 15th birthday is coming up soon. Oliver is a famous marine biologist who studies humpback whales, but his career success has come to the detriment of his home life. After a big argument, Jane and Rebecca leave. Jane’s brother Joley (Jane and Joley have always been close), helps direct Jane from California to Massachusetts (where Joley is living and working) via letters along the way.

The first half was a bit more confusing with regard to timeline. Rebecca’s POV was told with each chapter going backward in time (but luckily, those were the chapters that told us a date). Until the middle of the book where show more other timelines met up, chapters were all moving forward chronologically, but they had started at different points in the story. Luckily, mid-way through, the timelines met up.

I didn’t find this as good as Picoult’s other books, but the second half did pick up for me – maybe because all timelines (except Rebecca’s) were now moving forward. But it might also have been that I liked reading the same thing happening from a different POV. Have to admit, though. I don’t think I really liked any of the characters. I suppose that could mean that everyone had good and bad points (like in real life), but I really didn’t like Sam and Hadley. I agreed with the ending – just barely as it almost didn’t go that way, and I was really afraid it wouldn’t (but there are probably readers who wanted it to end the way I didn’t!). show less

The writing is good, the underlying theme interesting, although the implication of the byline on the front of my copy is a bit misleading.

However the structure is a bit confusing. There are five different narrators, all distinct; but one of them narrates in reverse order. The way the narrations converge mid-way through the book is cleverly done, and once I'd got the general idea I was mostly able to keep track. But it meant that what would have been a dramatic climax to the book is already summed up in the first chapters... so I knew what would be coming, and the ending rather peters out.

Interesting to read the author's first published novel, but I doubt if I'll re-read it.

Longer review here: show more target="_top">https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2020/09/songs-of-humpback-whale-by-jodi-pic... show less

This was a departure for Jodi Picoult. Not a courtroom or headline in sight! But is was very good. A look at how we can love different people and how to make tough decisions. It was a little disconcerting having one of the five narrators going backwards while everyone else went forward but once I got used to it, it added to the foreshadowing. It was good to see different points of view of the same events. I always enjoy Jodi Picoult and this was no exception.

As with a lot of her books, nothing is black and white. Jane leaves her husband after slapping him, she takes her 15-year-old daughter with her. Jane was abused as a child and worries that she will become like her father. A multi-narrator book, revealing the story piece by piece, I did get drawn into this very quickly.

Ah Jodi. I am giving her a break because this was her first book. It was written in 1992. At least I can only hope because it was all over the place. Characters developed too quickly, the ideas in the book seemed completely unrealistic. She told the story in a style she still uses today - many voices - and normally I love that about her. But this one - nope. I rolled my eyes about 500 times during the reading of the book. The ending was blah. I won't hold it against her, though. She has written some amazing books. This just wasn't one of them.

This is one of Picoult's first novels, so maybe she hadn't hit her stride yet. I found myself skimming a lot of this book...not a good sign. I didn't care about the characters, because I didn't really like them. The ones that I thought I might like, weren't really developed enough.

Here's the spoiler part: The only reason I kept skimming was that I couldn't believe Hadley just fell. I felt like that was just a lame plot addition to wrap things up. And I was in disbelief that Jane went back to Oliver. I was not convinced that he had really changed at all. (Although I felt sorry for Jane, I didn't like either of them.)

I tried very hard to read this book. The 2nd one of hers I tried to read. The 1st one was a 4 star. I got halfway through it but just couldn't finish it. It went back and forth in time and back and forth with people and was generally so confusing that I couldn't keep up. It is an older one.