Customer Reviews

Vanishing Acts: A Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a very disappointing book. It contained a lot of unnecessary filler. It took a while to read this book it just didn't hold my interest. Would not recommend.

Author Jodi Picoult always creates such vivid, real characters it becomes easy to get lost in her books. "Vanishing Acts" is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of THE BEST books in recent years. It's the haunting memories of the past making turmoil in the present and threatening the future. Along with Sue Monk Kidd's new novel "The Mermaid Chair" and Rikki Lee Travolta's "My Fractured Life", Picoult's "Vanishing Acts" is takes the haunting of the past concept to new levels. Absolutely a book you should give a try.

Well... I saw "Plain Truth" on tv and I loved it. So I decided to give her a try. I got Vanishing Acts. Well, it's a good story and I liked reading it. The way it's written is unique. It was different from the other books I have read. I bought "Nineteen Minutes". I'll give you a review later. I give her 4 stars for the story and the originality in the way it's written. :)

I wasn't sure whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars. If Picoult had left out the chapters narrated by Fitz I would give it 4 stars, but as written, I felt it deserved 3 stars. The chapters alternate between those narrated by Delia, her father Andrew, her boyfriend Eric, and her friend Fitz. Overall, the novel could have been shorter - simply leaving out the Fitz chapters would have accomplished that. His character comes across as a pathetic victim of his love for Delia and really doesn't add to the story.

The chapters by Andrew however deserve 5 stars! He recounts his experiences in prison and those chapters are "page turners". Picoult's writing in these accounts weave drama, tragedy, and tension to portray how Andrew walks a fine line between compromising his values and maintaining his integrity in order to stay alive in prison while awaiting his trial. Picoult takes hard core criminals and presents their characters and lives in a way that the reader feels empathy and cares for them despite their hard core criminal careers and the things they resort to to survive in prison. She does such a great job that - without giving away a very emotional part of the story - I cried over a particularly sad incident. The accounts of Andrew in prison are what really makes this book great.

In The Tenth Circle I loved the way Picoult used similies and made comments tieing the story to "life lessons". In this book, however, she goes overboard to the point that many of these comments become syrupy and seemed forced; they don't have the same effect that they had in The Tenth Circle.

All in all though, I would still recommend this book. The Andrew chapters make the book worth the read.