A Spark of Light

Author: Jodi Picoult

One-sentence summary: An abortion clinic is attacked and a hostage situation plays out with flash backs to the past and the characters individual stories.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7

Our favorite thing about it: The author showcases the human element in the abortion issue along with a balanced, nuanced discussion of it.

Our least favorite thing about it: The sporadic, non-linear timeline.

Main Topics of Discussion: Abortion, Pregnancy, Motherhood, Religion, Stories

Our favorite quote: “We are all drowning slowly in the tide of our opinions, oblivious that we are taking on water every time we open our mouths.”

Notes: This is another book that we anticipated liking more than we did. Again, we didn’t really dislike it, but it didn’t live up to our expectations. The last Jodi Picoult book we read together (Great Small Things) was infinitely better than this one. The bar was high. Other thoughts:

1. The biggest, most annoying thing to us about this book was how the timeline jumped around. It was not linear and was very hard for all of us to follow with so many story lines bouncing around. Not only did we have to figure out whose story it was, but we had to figure out when – and remember what had already happened and what hadn’t yet happened. We universally disliked this for our reading experience.

2. We felt like some of the exposition about abortion (even through the women’s stories) was repetitive. Maybe that was necessary, but we definitely noticed it.

3. A corollary to #1, there were a lot of characters. Almost too many. We appreciate that the author wanted to provide a variety of stories intersecting around this abortion clinic, and it mostly worked.

4. We felt slightly manipulated by the Beth/Lil name-game. There’s a fine line between a really great twist near the end of a book and your readers feeling deceived – this line was almost crossed this time.

5. We really did appreciate how stories were used to show many of the nuanced issues and events surrounding abortions or even just reasons why a woman would be at an abortion clinic – for an abortion or not. This was very interesting and we appreciated how it gave the issue human faces, which is always helpful.

6. There was a strong theme of children (mostly women, since that’s the focus of this book) without mothers. In this same vein, we felt that Beth and Wren’s lives almost paralleled too much: no mothers, only fathers, etc. It almost seemed too perfect for the narrative.

7. The ending left many questions unanswered. While we’re not strangers to that, sometimes it still leaves a reader dissatisfied. For some of us, that was true at the end of this book.

Memorable Meeting Moments: This was officially Amberly’s meeting and was her book pick, but since she is in China, we met at Rachels’ house. We did get to chat with Amberly and her opinions on the book are included in our thoughts above.

What We Ate: A huge charcuterie spread. And wine. 😊