SMALL GREAT THINGS by Jodi Picoult

SMALL GREAT THINGS by Jodi Picoult

“... I didn’t write this novel because I thought it would be fun or easy. I wrote it because I believed it was the right thing to do, and because the things that make us most uncomfortable are the things that teach us what we all need to know.” - Jodi Picoult, her author’s note to Small Great Things.

Words have never felt so true. This novel did make me uncomfortable at times. It was hard. Really, really hard. But I’ve never annotated a work of contemporary fiction more than I did this book. You know that moment when you’re reading and you stop suddenly in the middle of the page, the wind knocked out of you by the words you just read? That happened to me several times when reading this. Other times I stopped and just thought. Thought about my own privilege, my own bias. I thought about all the things I never think about, because I’ve never had to. I’ll admit - the first few chapters from Turk’s perspective were really hard for me to read. I almost put it down and read something else. But I knew this story was going somewhere that I needed to see. And I’m so glad I did. It challenged me in my approach to racism. It challenged the certainty of my own convictions. It painfully made me aware of my own blindness.

I’d recommend this solely for the way Picoult turns the pages of her novel into a mirror, your own eyes staring back at the preconceived notions and beliefs you so firmly hold going into it. But I’d also recommend this book because I think it’s a necessary read - a catalyst in a conversation that needs to continue.

More than anything, however, I’d like to stress that we need to start prioritizing books that approach racism and privilege from authors of color. I’d like to read more books by POC, and therefore while I’m glad I read this book, I’m looking forward to reading the words of POC in the future.