Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

Synopsis :


Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can’t recall.

And when a policemen arrives to disclose a truth that will upend the world as she knows it, Delia must search through these memories – even when they have the potential to devastate her life, and the lives of those she loves most. Vanishing Acts is a book about the nature and power of memory; about what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us… and what happens when the memory we thought had vanished returns as a threat.

Vanishing Acts was told from the point of view of the 5 main characters. They are Delia, the woman whom the book centres upon, Eric, her fiancée who’s also a lawyer and an alcoholic, Fitz, her best friend who is in love with her, Andrew, her father and Elise, her mother. Each chapter would have one person telling the story from their perspective and mostly from was left off the previous chapters.

Although the story behind Vanishing Acts is intriguing and rather heart wrenching, I actually find it quite boring as well and I only read on to find out what happened in the end although I have an idea and I was right. The characters do not appeal to me and for some reason, I didn’t like Delia the character and finds her rather abrasive. Like the previous works of Jodi that I have read, namely Second Chance and Picture Perfect, this book also made reference to and draw from Native American beliefs, rituals and references to the spirit world.  Is this Jodi's trademark?

In my opinion, if you are new to Jodi Picoult, do not start with this book. You might have a wrong impression of Jodi from this. If you are familiar to Jodi’s work, I am sure you would agree with me that while Jodi is a great writer on human relationship and tackles controversial subjects, this is not one of her best work.

I didn’t buy my copy but borrowed it from the local library.

Comments

  1. DanmarkMarch 23, 2012 at 10:09 AM

    This is the story of Delia who was raised by her father. Her father believed her mother was dead. Now Delia has a daughter and a fiancee'. We find out that her father took her away from her mother as a girl because her mother was an alcoholic. This book was too predictable and just okay. Jodi has written better stories.

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