Songs of the Humpback Whale

It's a little while now since I read Jodi Picoult's first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale. In some ways, I felt it was a more accomplished book than the last one I had read, House Rules, less formulaic, more original. It's a simple story of a relationship falling apart, a journey across America, the bond between a mother and daughter, and humpback whales. Like a lot of Picoult's books, the story is told in many voices, and it took me a little while to figure out who was who. Thankfully, there was no lawyer in this one - lawyers have become too much of a staple of Picoult's books. One feature I found interesting was that one of the storylines was told in reverse chronological order, so you knew what was going to happen before it happened so to speak - it was a little bit confusing at first, because you didn't know the characters yet, but I felt it gave the book an unusual richness.