Member Reviews

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  2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

  • Rated 3 stars

  “Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. Her books make me think, tug at my heart and my mind, and always surprise me. So it comes as a big surprise to find myself so disappointed with this book. The books starts with a great premise, a woman’s world falls apart when she learns she was kidnapped as a child… by her father. She has lived her entire life thinking her mother had died and that she was Delia Hopkins. When her father is arrested she learns her mother is very much alive, and that she is Bethany Matthews, a child raised in Arizona, who has lived her life as Delia in New Hampshire.
  
  The problems with the book for me were many. The book is told in the voices of the five main characters, Delia, her fiancé Eric, her life long friend Fritz, her father Andrew and her mother Elise. Unfortunately none of them had a distinctive voice, and none of them made an impression on me. I felt sorry for Delia/Bethany but the rest of the main characters aroused to sympathy or compassion in me, only anger over some of their stupidity. The most interesting character in the book was Ruthann, a Hopi Indian that Delia befriends when she returns to Arizona for her father’s trial and to meet her mother. Although I liked the character of Ruthann, I could find no point or reason for her story line in the telling of this tale. Lastly, the prison scenes were frequently quite violent, I question the behavior of Delia’s’ father when placed in contact with other prisoners, and the inclusion of a recipe for methamphetamine was surely questionable.
  
  Since I loved The Pact, Plain Truth and My Sister’s Keeper, and I have 4 more of her earlier books on my TBR pile, I will continue to read Picoult, I just hope her next book is better than this effort.
  ”

  Ladyslott wrote this review Tuesday, January 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )
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  2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

  • Rated 2 stars

  “It kept me reading because it's easy, but it's definitely not my favorite.”

  Shonda wrote this review Thursday, December 20 2007. ( reply | permalink )
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  1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

  • Rated 3 stars

  “Its a good read...i like how the incidents are described from the viewpoints of the different characters...it helps in developing a close bond with the characters...
  It is a good n easy read..”

  Sania Dewan wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 2 stars

  “I was very disappointed in this book, mostly because I found the premise to be so unbelievable. You can't tell me a 4- or 5-year-old can be told that she now has a different name and Mom is dead and that's that. The first thing any child learns by the age of two is her first and last name and that's not something that you might forget or that changes. Any normal person would have had questions about her past once she reached an adult age and would have pursued the questions she had.
  
  Early in the book I found a discrepancy that had me questioning the editing or her ability to tell a simple sequence of events ... she drives to Fitz's apartment, he lays a trail starting from there and Delia and Greta find him six miles later. Then she "drives him back home..." But Delia and Greta have followed Fitz's trail on foot and her car is back at his apartment anyway.
  
  All the Indian lore and prison insider stuff was superfluous; I skimmed over most of it.”

  delmargal wrote this review 23 hours ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 3 stars

  “I thought this was a strong Picoult novel. There are the obligatory twists, although I admittedly saw them coming...I've read and seen too much, I guess. I think Eric, Delia's fiance, and Andrew, Delia's father, are slightly more fleshed out in their characterization than Delia herself. Overall, I enjoyed the book and read it quickly. ”

  Sheri H wrote this review yesterday. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 5 stars

  “(418 pages)”

  ghost of a rose wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 0 stars

  “"New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her ability to tap into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she explores what happens when a young woman's past -- a past she didn't even know she had -- catches up to her just in time to threaten her future. Vanishing Acts explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how doing the right thing could mean doing the wrong thing; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat.”
  Susan P.”

  Teacher Reads wrote this review 7 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 4 stars

  “This is the type of book that will keep you reading. The decisions they make, or the things they say about Delia's life are suppencefull. ”

  Annabell wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 4 stars

  “This book is about a girl who lives her whole life thinking that her mother died in a car crash, until one day while she was at home with her daughter and her dad the police knock on the door asking for her dad, only to find out that her dad kidnapped her when she was four years old. I hate to leave you hanging but I hope that tells you a little about this book, and I hope it makes you want to read it!”

  Adrianna! A-DOGG! #3 wrote this review 13 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 3 stars

  “Perhaps I had read too many Jodi Picoult books in a row as I didn't enjoy this book as much as I have her others but it was still a good read. How would you cope if you found out that your whole life was based around a lie and the very person you had always put all your trust in, had actually been responsible for that lie?? Jodi Picoult has created another intense situation that she handles with compassion and understanding.”

  Kim K wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )