Reviewed by: Rosella
Genre: Tragedy, Drama
Rating: 2/5
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
The reason I wanted to read this book was because I watched the movie for My Sister's Keeper (which I loved) and I was always told Jodi Picoult was an amazing author. Unfortunately, this book did not deliver. I found that I had to put in a lot of effort to sympathize with the characters and connect with them.
The only character I connected to at the slightest was the mother, because she was the easiest to connect to. We've all been through that guilty feeling when you regret something or when you wish you could have fixed a problem and helped someone out. And there's the feeling that everyone connect to; when you start to feel useless whenever you're compared to someone else.
The reason I couldn't connect to Trixie was because she herself was lying to everyone and just kept making mistake over mistake. To be brutally honest, she annoyed me. At first I tried to connect to her and think from her position but I was really annoyed and embarrassed for her. The way she kept thinking about her ex, instead of moving on...it just really bugged me. Of course, it's general knowledge that break ups are hard, but Trixie didn't even try to move on! It wasn't even just that, her lies hurt other people negatively; she could have easily fixed that by telling the truth but she preferred not to.
I've read other reviews where people have said that this was not one of Jodi Picoult's good books and that they were a bit disappointed, so I decided that I will try my luck with a different book of hers. The next two I will probably read are Perfect Match and My Sister's Keeper.
Likes: The mother.
Dislikes: Trixie, Trixie's best friend...etc.
*Note: this book includes rape and other mature themes.
Genre: Tragedy, Drama
Rating: 2/5
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
The reason I wanted to read this book was because I watched the movie for My Sister's Keeper (which I loved) and I was always told Jodi Picoult was an amazing author. Unfortunately, this book did not deliver. I found that I had to put in a lot of effort to sympathize with the characters and connect with them.
The only character I connected to at the slightest was the mother, because she was the easiest to connect to. We've all been through that guilty feeling when you regret something or when you wish you could have fixed a problem and helped someone out. And there's the feeling that everyone connect to; when you start to feel useless whenever you're compared to someone else.
The reason I couldn't connect to Trixie was because she herself was lying to everyone and just kept making mistake over mistake. To be brutally honest, she annoyed me. At first I tried to connect to her and think from her position but I was really annoyed and embarrassed for her. The way she kept thinking about her ex, instead of moving on...it just really bugged me. Of course, it's general knowledge that break ups are hard, but Trixie didn't even try to move on! It wasn't even just that, her lies hurt other people negatively; she could have easily fixed that by telling the truth but she preferred not to.
I've read other reviews where people have said that this was not one of Jodi Picoult's good books and that they were a bit disappointed, so I decided that I will try my luck with a different book of hers. The next two I will probably read are Perfect Match and My Sister's Keeper.
Likes: The mother.
Dislikes: Trixie, Trixie's best friend...etc.
*Note: this book includes rape and other mature themes.