Sometimes there is a specific flavor of escapism that I crave: the kind that comes not from reading stories with low stakes, but from getting wrapped up in the dramatic problems of fictional characters. And after reading Mad Honey and looking over synopses for a lot of Jodi Picoult's books, I suspected that I had found a treasure trove of imaginary people with problems.

I chose Sing You Home for my first solo Picoult because it's about lesbians and I am me. It's from 2011 and shows its age, in ways both expected (casual transphobia) and unexpected (the jarring realization that things seem kinda worse for queer people in 2023). It was obviously written for a straight audience, and the characters do a lot of work to establish that they're not the loud, weird, scary, flag-waving kinds of lesbians. They assuage fears of gay people being attracted to everyone of the same gender they lay eyes on. And there's

Spoiler

ample time spent establishing that while a character had an abortion when she was 19, it was in fact agonizing and she feels permanent guilt about it. Is that a reaction someone might have to getting an abortion? I suppose, although everything I've read indicates that most people who get abortions report feeling relief afterward. Bottom line, I just don't think abortion needed more negative PR, and this was handled poorly.

But I didn't hate reading this. It's a popcorn book and mostly entertained me the way that I wanted, despite dragging a bit in the last quarter. Not amazing, but fine. A fried-egg-on-toast book.