"Let me tell you a little something about love. It's different every time....I believe that you can fall in love many times with many different people. However I don't think that you can fall in love the same way twice. One type of relationship may be steady. Another may be fire and brimstone. Who is to say if one these is better than the other? The deciding factor is how it all fits together....The bottom line is: when your heart sets its sight on someone, it doesn't consult with your mind."
-Joley, page 336
I have read a number of Jodi Picoult's books and have enjoyed several but not this one. In fact it took me a while to finish it and at first I wasn't sure I wanted to. A friend recommended the book and loaned me a copy which was probably one reason I did get to the end. That and I finally got to a point where I wanted to know how it turned out. This was not a "page turner" as many of her novels have been for me.
First I found her style and the format of the story quite confusing. I didn't mind the alternating voices of the characters nearly as much as that some of the storytelling was backwards! This is how lost I was: I didn't even realize that the only character relating events backward chronologically was Rebecca, until I learned it in the first discussion question at the end of the novel! I actually enjoyed the perspectives of the different characters as the plot continued.
Though Oliver, husband of Jane and father of Rebecca, the two main characters, was a scientist and expert on humpback whales, I never really understood how the title fit the plot. Again, in reading over the discussion questions it seems that whale songs may have been a metaphor for communication or lack of it. Perhaps I didn't read this novel deeply enough!
I try not to include "spoilers" in my reviews but I personally didn't care much for the ending. I would rate this one a 3.
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