2019 Book Review #9: A Spark of Light

If there's ever a book that will leave you thinking this is it.

No matter where you stand on the abortion/anti-abortion/pro-life issue, you will be moved by this novel.  The author has truly outdone herself.  I have read every single book she has written. I have enjoyed all of them but 3.  My top 3 have now been pushed aside by this one taking my most fave of hers.  What a gifted writer.  What profound thoughts she put into this novel and what knowledge and research went into this.  Well done.

STORY SUMMARY

It's a nice autumn day in the deep south of Mississippi. The Women's Center, a reproductive health services center, is operating as normal.  The staff consists of a traveling medical ob/gyn, several different nurses, the owner (a woman named Vonita) and other staff members.  They care for whomever walks through their doors.  But on this one nice morning, a gunman walks in and opens fire.  He takes everyone inside hostage.  He has an agenda.  And a very clear reason as to why he is there.

Hugh McElroy is a police hostage negotiator.  He rushes to the scene and sets up a command center.  He makes a plan to communicate with the gunman, a man they have discovered is named George Goddard. His cell phone begins to vibrate with several incoming text messages.  To his horror, he finds out that his 15 year old daughter Wren is inside the center with his older sister, Bex.

Wren is not alone.  She is inside with many different people.  A nurse named Izzy who herself is pregnant, helps everyone stay calm.  Dr Ward is badly wounded in the leg. He does his work not in spite of his faith, but because of it.  His faith will now be tested as never before. Vonita, the center's owner, is dead as is another staff member. 

An anti-abortion (Picoult uses the term pro-life) protester who is disguised as a patient, is also in the center when bullets start flying. She is now in the midst of the very rage she herself has felt.  

There is a young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy.  There is one who is dying of ovarian cancer.

The gunman, who is quite disturbed, vows to be heard.

MY THOUGHTS

This book is riveting.  First, I want to share my own views on the abortion issue.  Yes I am pro-Life.  By that, I mean I am  pro-Life.  Meaning I am anti-abortion but I am also anti-death penalty.  To me, that is Pro-Life. Yet many of my friends and family who claim to be pro-life are really just anti-abortion.  Because they also believe it is ok to kill people via the death penalty.  I am not that kind of Christian. I also recognize that here in this country, in the USA, people have choices and free will. And I definitely believe in birth control! I also do not know what I would do if I was raped and impregnated (when I was pre-menopause I mean) or how I would feel if one of my daughters were.  It is such a complex issue.

Picoult does a marvelous job in showing all sides of this debate.  It's a moral and ethical issue for sure and sadly, it has become a political issue.

It is told in a narrative style and she goes backwards in time in each chapter. It begins at 5 pm one day and goes back to 4 pm, 3 pm, etc until the 8 a.m time.

Then the ending is 6 pm.

What you discover is just eye opening.

As you read back through the day, you find out what brought each person to the same place that day.

The author asks the question "How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry?" and "what does it mean to be a good parent?"

The ending has a surprise twist that I did NOT see coming and for those of you who know me, you know I love that about a writer.

There were so many good quotes out of this story that I can't begin to share them all. I'll share a few that really stood out to me but honestly there were more.  

"Sometimes you have to make a choice that isn't what you want to do, but what you have to do. That's honor." (pg 78, A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult c. 2018)

"Sometimes you can't tell how consuming love is until you can see its absence." (pg 239 A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult, c.2018)

"Wren shook her head, now that she realized that this woman who was anti-contraception was also anti-abortion. Wasn't that counter intuitive? If you didn't want abortions, shouldn't you at least be throwing free condoms and birth control pills out to anyone who would take them?" (pg 291, A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult, c. 2018)

"It stood to reason that both life and death began with a spark of light." (pg.342 A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult c.2018)

"but we can't make policies based on religion when religion means different things to different people. Which leaves science.  The science of reproduction is what it is.  Conception is conception.  You can decide the ethical value that has for you, based on your own relationship with God...but the policies around basic human rights with regard to reproduction shouldn't be up for interpretation." (pg 344 A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult, c.2018) 

The author has several pages of notes with explanations and statistics about the abortion and anti-abortion issue.  It's fascinating to read her own thoughts and see the studies and numbers. She also goes into the contraception issue and I am pretty much in agreement with her.  We need affordable health care for ALL people in this country and we need to educate better the teens and other people about birth control.

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.