Review: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

My Rating:


I would like to thank Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an advanced reading copy of this book.

Small Great Things takes the good, the bad, and the ugly of racism and tells the story from all sides. It's a powerful story that shines a light on not only the glaringly obvious acts of racism, but also on the small everyday occurrences and comments that go unnoticed, get ignored, or are overlooked. It was hard to read at times, but it's sadly a reality for many and is something we all need to be aware of in order to promote change, acceptance, and compassion for all.

The attitude of Turk and his buddies made my blood boil. White supremacy makes me so angry and I have no time for anyone who behaves in the manner that Turk and his friends do in this book. I found his sections hard to read, I could feel my anger and blood pressure rising with every word. It saddens me to know there are people like this in the world today.

White privilege is something that is hard for many people to understand and accept. It's easy to ignore or to overlook and claim it doesn't exist. It does. It's something I think you need to experience to truly understand, and reading this book gives you a good idea of how common it really is. It certainly gave me something to think about. I was taught from a young age to be considerate of all no matter their colour, religion, or sexual orientation, but it's easy to forget that not everyone treats others in this way. It's too easy to tune out what's going on around you.

I'm sure many of us think we get it, but do we? Are we truly aware? How much don't we see because we've seen it so often that we just don't see it anymore? How often do we not speak up because we don't want that hate or prejudice redirected onto ourselves? There is so much hate in the world over something as simple as the amount of melanin present in a person's skin. We are all one race, the human race. We are all the same. We're different shades of one colour and we all need to embrace that.

There is so much more I want to say and that is what is great about this book. It opens so much up for discussion and I have had a good few deep conversations with my son while reading this book.

I have already recommended it to many of my friends and looking forwards to discussing it with them.

I just have to share this quote from the book. Didn't know where to put it so I'm just going to throw it in here at the end...

"I feel like I've been standing underneath an open window, just as a baby gets tossed out. I grab the baby, right, because who wouldn't? But then another baby gets tossed out, so I pass the baby to someone else, and I make the catch. This keeps happening. And before you know it there are a whole bunch of people who are getting really good at passing along babies, just like I'm good at catching them, but no one ever asks who the fuck is throwing the babies out the window in the first place."




Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
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