Small Great Things

I bought this book to do a buddy read a couple years ago, but we never got around to it. I didn't pick the book, I just agreed based on the Goodreads score alone. I picked it at random from my tbr with a number generator. Fair warning, this is going to be a full on rant.
I don't like the way it made me feel reading it. This book was an accumulation of every stereotype and had the most ideal and unrealistic ending. I hate that she let Turk end this novel and it was a redemptive moment. I personally feel like the opportunity to share stories about racial injustice should be given predominantly to the people who live through the societal consequences that come with walking through the world while being part of said race.
Jodi Picoult is a popular author. She has several best selling books and even has movie adaptations. Even this one is getting a movie adaptation. It makes me wonder at the true motivation for writing this book. She has already received so much acclaim for pedaling trauma porn in all of her other 27 books and yet this one is among the highest rated. Makes me wonder who actually benefits from this book? This is the type of “allyship” that feels icky. Virtue signaling while also typing countless slurs and making the reader look through the perspective of member of the white power movement. Just icky. In the author's note the author talks about how she wanted to write about race for 20 years and found a real story of a poc nurse in Michigan who was requested to be removed from a patient's team, a skinhead who turned their life around and apologized to someone they terrorized years prior, and identified with the character who tried to do right as a white person but made blunders along the way. I hate the narrative from famous “allies” that white people should make other white people understand that what they think is wrong. Because at the base of that, these particular white people are profiting off of it. They get the book sales, and movie offers, and pats on the back. At no time, did she stop and think she should promote the stories that already exist from people of color. Invite people of color into the space of your readership and viewership and give them the floor. Show your support, do your own research, and field the questions afterward. Give the press coverage to them and stop using their trauma to feel good about yourself. Ugh. /rant