Jodi Picoult is one of those authors, for me at least, that has achieved at least some measure of literary recognition and yet, I find her books to be full of improbable plots, overdone clichés and characters I'd like to slap. Songs of the Humpback Whale is her first novel and one which I am finding disjointed and even annoying.
Chapters 1-18
In this section we meet our characters, Jane (a speech therapist and mother), Oliver (her husband and a douchebag), Rebecca (their daughter), Sam (some guy with an Orchard), Hadley (some guy that dies) and Joley (Jane's brother and a somewhat questionable character). Jane has an unhappy marriage and had an abusive father when she was growing up because... of course she did. I feel like writers are always like “well this character needs a troubled past...I know! Child abuse!” Now her husband is distant and, well, I don't know how else to put this... a douchebag. He's a famous Oceanographer which seems slightly improbable to me, but anyway, let's continue. The characters all get their turn at telling their side of the story. Jane is bored with her life and her boring underwear (more on that in a later section!) and her husband who doesn't seem to give a crap about her or their daughter. Rebecca is the daughter that Jane is somewhat jealous of. She is beautiful and young and full of life. However, when she was three Rebecca survived a plane crash, again, somewhat improbable but let's go with it!. One day Jane comes home from work, it's Rebecca's birthday but Oliver tells her he has important whale things to do. He really loves whales, which is about all we can deduce from his contributions to the story. Then she goes into her closet where she discovers that her shoes have been replaced by...whale tapes! Shit, I would be annoyed by that too! She drops the tapes over the stairs but then feels really bad until Oliver says she is a bitch. Ouch. She slaps him and has a complete overreaction thinking she's just like her father and etc. etc. etc. She takes Rebecca and they head out on a road trip. Flash forward some amount of time and some guy called Sam is comforting Rebecca after the death of some guy called Hadley. I seriously reread this 8 times or so because I was sure that I had missed something. I'm all for jumping back and forward in time but this was done in such an unorganised way that it just seemed confusing. Sam's story (so far) is he really likes apple trees, almost as much as Oliver likes whales. Oliver tries to work through what to do and eventually (among many ponderings about whales) decides to follow his wife and daughter across the country. Jane calls her brother, Joley, another character that is just too creepy and improbable to actually exist. Joley tells her that he will guide her across the country (since she is a woman and clearly has no sense of direction at all!) with a series of misguided and creepy letters. He writes her the first letter saying that when they were kids he was always the beautiful one, even his name means pretty but hey, not to worry because he always loved his sister anyway. Thanks bro! Jane and Rebecca have typical road trip adventures: Indian Reservation! Sleeping under the stars! Not showering! Yay! Meanwhile future Rebecca is sad because this Hadley character has died and she was in love with him. Jane is in love with someone called Sam but she is dutifully going back with Oliver because she is just insufferable like that! Oliver is a douche. After a lot of exposition we learn that Sam really loves apples because he works at an Orchard. He also had sex with his ex. Why this is in here we do not know. Hadley is some guy that Rebecca was in love with. After nearly being raped by some truckers (!!) she heads to his house and has sex with him for the first time. Unfortunately he promptly gets pushed off a cliff. Joley is just a bit weird, he keeps writing these romantic letters to his SISTER. Just eww. So far, I am unimpressed with this writing, it's so disjointed that I never know what exactly is going on and I have an extreme distaste for all of the characters. Just re-reading my recap I am thinking to myself "WHAT?" Jane is annoying, Rebecca is full of shite, Joley is creepy and Sam and Hadley just seem like filler. But let's see what happens next!
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