The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
The Tenth Circle: A Novel
Synopsis:
Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life -- a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter.
With The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult offers her most powerful chronicle yet as she explores the unbreakable bond between parent and child, and questions whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime -- or if your mistakes are carried forever.
Review:
The Tenth Circle is the first Jodi Picoult book I have read. I have been meaning to check out her book and I saw this on a list of books to read so I downloaded it. I'm glad I did as it was a really great read.
The Tenth Circle is not a light read by any means. It deals with a lot of serious things. It starts off when Trixie is raped one evening and goes on to how everyone deals with that and what happens later. It was hard to read at times because it would make me so angry. Angry not because of the writing or anything like that, but rather because it was too realistic. The way the rape was dealt with, the perpetrator, how everyone in town reacted was too real. How many times have I seen news stories about hometown sports stars and the people in town just cannot believe they would do something like this. That the girl must be making it up. Or that it doesn't matter because they are the hometown sports star and that somehow is more important. It is disgusting, but it happens. So the first half of the book made me angry at times because it was too true.
Daniel, Trixie's dad, has a particularly hard time with it. He has a rough past that he never talks about, but this brings some of that back. He is a comic book artist and I loved the pages of the comic book interspersed between the chapters. I love the Dante's Inferno references, since the wife teaches that, and it really added to the story for me. I loved seeing what he was working on. His wife has her own things going on at the time and what happens to Trixie really makes her stop and think about what she has done.
You also get to see what the perpetrator thinks about everything that is happening. That was probably the most interesting part. In this case it is kind of sad. It is hard to know exactly what happens when you only have the two people who were there.
Then about half way through there is another major event that changes everything. It leads the story into a different direction and I kept thinking wait! You didn't answer all the questions I had. Things were brought up, but never revealed in the first half and they seemed to just be hanging. The author does get back to them, they are not forgotten. It is always crazy how interconnected things are. It takes a lot for everyone to deal with what happened and learn to go on with their lives, but it happens. Trixie's dad is just so involved, he cares so much about her it was great to read. It was great that she has such an amazing support system in place. Really a great read.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★1/2
Review:
The Tenth Circle is the first Jodi Picoult book I have read. I have been meaning to check out her book and I saw this on a list of books to read so I downloaded it. I'm glad I did as it was a really great read.
The Tenth Circle is not a light read by any means. It deals with a lot of serious things. It starts off when Trixie is raped one evening and goes on to how everyone deals with that and what happens later. It was hard to read at times because it would make me so angry. Angry not because of the writing or anything like that, but rather because it was too realistic. The way the rape was dealt with, the perpetrator, how everyone in town reacted was too real. How many times have I seen news stories about hometown sports stars and the people in town just cannot believe they would do something like this. That the girl must be making it up. Or that it doesn't matter because they are the hometown sports star and that somehow is more important. It is disgusting, but it happens. So the first half of the book made me angry at times because it was too true.
Daniel, Trixie's dad, has a particularly hard time with it. He has a rough past that he never talks about, but this brings some of that back. He is a comic book artist and I loved the pages of the comic book interspersed between the chapters. I love the Dante's Inferno references, since the wife teaches that, and it really added to the story for me. I loved seeing what he was working on. His wife has her own things going on at the time and what happens to Trixie really makes her stop and think about what she has done.
You also get to see what the perpetrator thinks about everything that is happening. That was probably the most interesting part. In this case it is kind of sad. It is hard to know exactly what happens when you only have the two people who were there.
Then about half way through there is another major event that changes everything. It leads the story into a different direction and I kept thinking wait! You didn't answer all the questions I had. Things were brought up, but never revealed in the first half and they seemed to just be hanging. The author does get back to them, they are not forgotten. It is always crazy how interconnected things are. It takes a lot for everyone to deal with what happened and learn to go on with their lives, but it happens. Trixie's dad is just so involved, he cares so much about her it was great to read. It was great that she has such an amazing support system in place. Really a great read.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★1/2
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