Saturday, December 27, 2008

Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

From Picoult's website: When Daniel Stone was a child, he was the only white boy in a native Eskimo village where his mother taught, and he was teased mercilessly because he was different. He fought back, the baddest of the bad kids: stealing, drinking, robbing and cheating his way out of the Alaskan bush – where he honed his artistic talent, fell in love with a girl and got her pregnant. To become part of a family, he reinvented himself – jettisoning all that anger to become a docile, devoted husband and father. Fifteen years later, when we meet Daniel again, he is a comic book artist. His wife teaches Dante’s Inferno at a local college; his daughter, Trixie, is the light of his life – and a girl who only knows her father as the even-tempered, mild-mannered man he has been her whole life. Until, that is, she is date raped…and Daniel finds himself struggling, again, with a powerlessness and a rage that may not just swallow him whole, but destroy his family and his future.

I will surely win the blog award for most boring reviewer when I say yet again, about yet another book, "This book was good, but not her best". Can I think of anything else to say? Perhaps a little. As the synopsis above would imply, the father, Daniel, is supposed to be a pivotal character in this book. But I really couldn't get "into" Daniel. The Eskimo thing, the comic book thing, the stay at home dad thing - it all just wasn't my thing. I thought the daughter was fascinating, the mom was very interesting too - even her lectures about Dante's Inferno - which didn't interest me one whit when I was in school! The story started off a little bit slow but midway through, it all of a sudden got pretty interesting and the pace stayed good until the end.

I loved My Sister's Keeper that was my first Jodi Picoult book. I worried when I finished it, knowing that she had so many others already out, "Did I read the best one first? Am I going to be disappointed by all the others?" And if this were my only book to judge her by, I'd have to say, yes, I read the better book first. But everyone I have talked to says others are good too. So I am going to raid Bookworm's bookshelf at some point and read some more of Jodi Picoult before I pass my Final Judgment. Which circle of hell do you suppose is reserved for boring bloggers?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree but I think everyone thinks their first Jodi Picoult book is the best. (Mine was Plain Truth a few years ago). That said, I do like the reliability of picking up one of her books and knowing she is going to open us up to an interesting perspective on a touchy subject and expose us to bits and pieces from a different culture too. After a while they can get a bit similar and confused in my memory so I had to start http://www.tansbookshelf.blogspot.com/ to keep track of everything!