Songs of a Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult | Online Book Review

Songs of a Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult is a novel about family, loss, misunderstanding and reconciliation.

My book review rating: 3 stars – just not as compelling as her later novels

I have had my eye on Picoult’s Songs of a Humpback Whale for a long time; despite it being her first published novel it was only released in the UK in November 2008. If you’ve read any of my other Picoult reviews here at Blue Archipelago you will know that I am a huge fan of her work, especially of Second Glance which I read last year. I therefore had high hopes for this novel, but sadly came away slightly disappointed.

This is the story of Jane, a 35-year old woman, who goes on the run with her 15-year old daughter Rebecca after an incident with her husband Oliver that rocks the foundations of their marriage. Unsure of where she is headed Jane calls her brother Joley for help, and he then guides her from the West Coast to the East through a series of letters that are delivered to various post offices for her to collect along the way.

The novel using several narrative voices, from Jane and Rebecca, to Oliver and Joley, and finally Sam, the owner of an apple orchard who prompts Jane to question her marriage even further.

I am of course used to this writing style of Picoult’s but found myself confused when she chose to tell the exact same scene from different point of views, using the same prose each time! I was also put off my the disjointed time line. Where Picoult usually takes the readers back several years to understand events that lead up to the current timeline in Songs of a Humpback Whale she chose to jump around over periods of 15-20 years and then over a period of a few short weeks; to the effect that an incident that could have been the climax of the book was almost glossed over part way through with me not fully understaning who the characters were and how they came to be in the situation.

As you can probably tell, I wasn’t particularly enarmoured with this novel! To be honest if it had been written by anyone else I might have awarded it 4 stars as critiscism aside it was an interesting read and there were some high points; but I’ve come to expect more from Picoult over the years and my disappointment leads to the 3-star rating. If you are a die-hard Picoult fan and you’ve not yet read this feel free to give it a go, if you’ve never read Picoult before then give this one a miss or it will put you off reading her later – and much better – novels.

Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices