Sing You Home, Jodi Picoult

Caution - Only read Sing You Home if you are willing to navigate the very strong emotions surrounding politics and religion regarding same sex couples that it will elicit. This book is not for wimps.

Sing You Home follows the life of Zoey and Max and their 9-year marriage which involves 5-years of fertility issues. During this time, the couple’s relationship dissolves but their embryos remain.

As Max, a failing alcoholic, starts over, again, with the help of a powerful and outspoken religious church (yes, I put the word religious in there purposefully - not all churches are as “religious” as others - read zealot) and a room in his brother and sister-in-laws basement, Zoey finds Vanessa. And much to everyone’s surprise, the two fall in love and get married.

When Zoey asks Max for permission (required as he is the biological other half of the embryos DNA), to use the embryos so that she and Ness can start a family, all hell breaks loose. The church hires the country’s biggest anti-gay lawyer and off we go.

DISCLAIMER: There were numerous times during this book that I almost put it down, away, and permanently off my shelf. I am glad I didn’t do any of those things. The plot, in Picoult style, was flawless, inspiring, enraging, endearing, heartbreaking, inflaming, and hate-filled (okay maybe all her books are not hate-filling). It was A LOT. My emotions and brain were all over the place. As a grandmother-in-waiting to a gay child who has yet to find their person yet wants to be a parent, I wanted to throttle Max, his lawyers, the church. But, as a beyond middle aged woman who works in the legal field reading a book written 12-years ago about the legalities of gay marriage, legal rights of embryos, and church versus state, I had to continue. I’m glad I did.

The resolution is as it should have been - there were no red herring zingers at the end and I’m thankful; my heartstrings couldn’t have survived.

Sing You Home should be required reading for those who believe there is only one way to be a family. Thank you, Jodi Picoult, for having the foresight, the inspiration, and quite frankly, the balls to write such a beautiful story.