Author: Jodi Picoultitle

Title: Sing You Home

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Zoe and her husband Max desperately want a child. They've tried everything, spent everything, and gone as far as they can with fertility treatments. In the end, it's not enough.

After one heartbreak too many, Max can't take any more. He turns—as he always does—to alcohol. Eventually he turns to Jesus and the Eternal Glory Church, a fundamentalist evangelical congregation his brother and sister-in-law have attended for years. It's a fresh start for Max, who pulls himself together and starts trying to live in a way that pleases God.

Zoe, on the other hand, turns to Vanessa, the counselor at a high school where Zoe sometimes works as a music therapist. Zoe doesn't have any real friends, so Vanessa seems like a gift from heaven: a friend, a soul mate . . . eventually, a lover. Before long, Zoe and Vanessa get married—in Massachusetts, of course, since same-sex marriage isn't legal in their home state of Rhode Island.

You can imagine how well that goes over with Max and his church friends . . . but that's nothing to how they react when they hear about the babies.

Zoe and Max's fertility treatments left them with three fertilized embryos on hold in the clinic. Since the couple had a do-it-yourself divorce, neither of them thought to do anything about their potential offspring. And while Zoe can't carry them to term, Vanessa can, so they ask Max to turn over his rights to the embryos. Max, confused about what to do, seeks counsel from his pastor.

And all hell breaks loose.

"Somewhere along the way, this became about politics, and religion, and law. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about people. About Zoe, and me, and these children we once wanted to have."

Perhaps Picoult's greatest gift as a novelist is making it "about people." Sing You Home may be an exploration of (among other things) gay rights, but first and foremost it is the story of people: Zoe, Max, those who love them, and those who want to use them. If nothing else, Sing You Home will make for some lively discussions.

If this was a clearly one-sided story, it would be easier to categorize. As it is, both Zoe's and Max's positions are given equal time and respect. That didn't make it any easier to read. Personally, I find lesbian love scenes, even the PG-13 versions found here, leave me feeling grubby. The same goes when reading about modern-day Pharisees whose greatest joy in life is gathering rocks and jockeying for a straight shot at a sinner. Both camps made me cringe at times. Regardless, as Max's sister-in-law Libby points out, "Jesus didn't make exceptions . . . he didn't say we're supposed to love ninety-eight percent of our neighbors. . . There may be days I don't really want to love the guy whose dog ate the heads off my daylilies, but Jesus says I don't have a choice."

Bonus: Picoult says she wanted her readers "to literally hear the voice of my main character . . . and so you get to hear Zoe pouring out her heart and soul to you through her songs." She does mean "literally," too—a CD of songs penned by Picoult and sung by Ellen Wilbur comes with the book.

*This review first published 3/14/2011