The book I didn't finish and why

So I am finally ready to tell you about the book I started last week and decided I would not finish this. Now let me tell you that I don't take decisions like this lightly. This is only the second book in my WHOLE life that I have not finished. So it takes a lot for me to not finish a book, especially when it is an author I usually like. This is the newest book by Jodi Picoult called Sing You Home.

Now I have to tell you that I was quite excited about reading this book because the book jacket and the blurbs online talked about a young woman who had met heartache in her life, her marriage ended, she tried to find herself and found love again. All the while how she is a music therapist helping others to do the same and wondered if she could help herself.  Now what in that description will give the actual story of this: woman loses her baby during pregnancy, divorces her husband, he joins an over-the-top Evangelical church called Eternal Glory, she decides she is a lesbian and starts a relationship with a school counselor, they fight for the embryos her and her first husband froze in court, she has a hysterectomy and cancer, etc.?  NOTHING! So I was completely disillusioned - COMPLETELY!!! 

So before I get hate mail on this topic let me explain. I am not racist, prejudiced, homophobic or anything of the like. I have several very close friends of other races and gender preferences. I would just like to buy a book because of my interest in the story - you know the one the author, publicist, publisher put out so we would want to buy it. Not something completely different. Now this topic is very interesting and very controversial I could have really read this book except for one thing - it was very one sided. The parts of the MC working as a music therapist were very intriguing to me and I could have read that all day. But the part that made the MC contradict herself throughout the story made it laughable and unbelievable. The author made the story about the gay and lesbian community and how they are always and completely condemned by Christians. Now being a Christian myself I know that this is not true. I know this subject is very touchy and I also know that both sides of this debate have been treated unfairly. So for the author to only put one side in this book was ridiculous. The topics she wanted to address here didn't make anyone have sympathy for either side. It just made you angry. 

I know that a book is written by an author about what that author wants to write. I respect that completely. Just don't portray your story one way when it really is about something completely different. If that was explained to me in the beginning I most likely would have read the book - the entire book. But blindsiding your audience is not the way to sell a book.

OK I am finished with my frustration. I will probably read Jodi Picoult again but it will be a while before I do so and only on the review and advice of someone else first.

That being said I have several more books I have finished this week and I will start having those reviews over the next few days. I have also received several more in the mail this week along with a couple over email. So I have lots of exciting stuff coming!

~Melissa