One-sentence plot summary: A Spark of Light is about the interconnected lives of a group of people being held hostage in a women's reproductive clinic by a shooter.

First and foremost--and I almost never comment on this--the cover of Jodi Picoult's A Spark of Light is gorgeous. Can we just take a moment to enjoy the swirling, cloudlike wisps of pastels? Sigh. As my thirteen year old, beauty blog obsessed daughter would say: it's so aesthetic. 

Now to the book itself: I got an ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for a review and I was thrilled. Picoult has a tendency to write very warm feeling books on controversial topics; she has the ability to make you really think, but ultimately walk away in a pretty positive headspace. That's really no easy feat and, frankly, it's a real plus in today's climate where half the books I read make me want to hide away for a week or so.

In addition to the relatively good vibes, A Spark of Light is a pageturner. It has several threads happening at once and finding out how all the characters are related is really compelling. The best part of this aspect, to me, is that the connections are subtle but meaningful. They are enough of a connection that you wonder how things would be different in character A's life if character B had done something different, but it's not handled in a dramatic or overwrought way. Also, the characters are really well developed. Picoult does a beautiful job of creating authentic voices that explore the deeper influences that lead characters to their actions. I especially love Wren, a teen girl who is at the clinic with her "aunt" to get birth control pills. I like that she is mature and realistic without that overly precocious, obnoxiously smart teen voice that some writers seem to prize.

Okay, now for the negative. There's only one, but sometimes it was a big one for me. 

Heads up: I’m a liberal. Like a big one. I’m so far left that.... I don’t even know where to go with that, but you get my point. I’m telling you this only so that you see this isn’t bias speaking.

I didn’t like how heavy-handed Picoult was with the pro-choice rhetoric in this one, not because I, personally, don’t agree 100%, but because sometimes the character’s internal dialogue sounded like it was a script of slogans from some sort of campaign poster. It took me out of the moment and those bits didn’t feel authentic. The good news: they were pretty rare. As I mentioned before, the character voices, overall, were stunningly well done.

This is a beautiful read that sucked me in from the first line. You will really be missing out if you don't put this on your "to-read" list.