Sing You Home- Jodi Picoult

#85. Sing You Home- Jodi Picoult

Zoe and Max have been struggling with infertility for years. Their latest round of IVF was successful but the pregnancy ends in a stillbirth at 26 weeks. And after that, Max is DONE with a capital D. He can't take any more pain, any more grief, any more of Zoe. He's out and filing for divorce. The split is simple, easy; both go their separate ways. Max starts drinking again and is taken in by his uberreligious brother and his wife; Zoe befriends Vanessa, a counselor at a school where Zoe works as a music therapist, and despite having lived a straight life, Zoe falls in love with her.

Zoe struggles a little to fully accept herself as a lesbian, but the real challenge comes when she and Vanessa decide they want to use the frozen embryos leftover from Zoe and Max's many attempts to have a child. Zoe's since had a hysterectomy, but Vanessa's able to carry the child. There's just the small hurdle of getting Max to agree to letting them use the embryos. But Max is now part of an evangelical Christian church, one that is completely anti-gay everything, and before too long, both sides are involved in a bitter legal battle. Zoe and Vanessa want to use the embryos to have a child of their own (and let Max be involved with the child however he wants); Max wants to give them to his brother and wife, who have also struggled with infertility. Throw in a few blowhard preachers and asshole lawyers, and you've got another Trial of the Century.

This is a pretty emotional book. It's the first Picoult book I didn't totally hate the ending. I won't give away any spoilers, but I felt that it was kind of unrealistic. Max was a pushover throughout so much of the book; I couldn't see him acting the way he did at the end. I would've liked to see more of Liddy's transformation, too, or maybe I just missed that she wasn't quite as deep into her church's viewpoint as her husband.

Not a bad read, but the scenes where Zoe's baby is stillborn are really gutwrenching.