Songs of the Humpback Whale

I just finished reading this book, by Jodi Picoult, and it was typical to Picoult's writing: emotionally charged, interesting characters, well written.

I have only recently been able to put into words an observation about writing: Just because you have an interesting story to tell doesn't make you a good writer; even if you don't have an interesting story to tell, you can still write a good story. Picoult is from the second category. Not that this wasn't an interesting story, but some aspects of the story line were cliches: a marriage in which the husband and wife have grown apart due to him being a workaholic; a daughter caught in the midst of it; the wife's past of abuse comes back to haunt her; falling in love with people they shouldn't fall in love with; the husband realizing what he is missing when the wife and daughter run away and going to find them.

But the book is incredibly well done. Same old story, yet told in an interesting way. That, to me, is a fantastic author.

One of the techniques that Picoult used to make this book unique is she wrote the story from the perspective of several different people. All of the narrators told the story front to back, except for one, who tells the story back to front. So you know what happens at the end in the very beginning of the book, but the book is so engaging that you want to read it anyway.