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Adam Haslett
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Vanishing Acts: Summary and book reviews of Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, plus links to an excerpt from Vanishing Acts and a biography of Jodi Picoult.
Vanishing Acts
by
Jodi Picoult
Hardcover: Mar 2005,
432 pages.
Paperback: Nov 2005,
448 pages.
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.
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
Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't
recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes
the world as she knows it.
In shock and confusion, Delia must sift through the truth -- even when it
jeopardizes her life and the lives of those she loves. What happens when you
learn you are not who you thought you were? When the people you've loved and
trusted suddenly change before your eyes? When getting your deepest wish means
giving up what you've always taken for granted? 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. Once again, Jodi Picoult handles a difficult
and timely topic with understanding, insight, and compassion.
Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Picoult weaves together plot and characterization in a landscape that is fleshed out in rich, journalistic detail, so that readers will come away with intriguing questions rather than pat answers.
Kirkus Reviews
An experienced novelist takes her sweet time to rich rewards: overall, an affecting saga, nicely handled.
New York Times - Janet Maslin
''Vanishing Acts'' is too busy to be tightly focused. And its main event, delivery of the bombshell about Delia's past, arrives so early in the story that it renders the rest anticlimactic.
The Boston Globe - Karen Campbell
"Vanishing Acts" is richly textured and engaging, and there are a few twists and turns that keep the plot from being too predictable. But ultimately, "Vanishing Acts" is about the elusive nature of memory. "Memories are like a still life painted by ten different student artists: some will be blue-based; others red; some will be as stark as Picasso and others as rich as Rembrandt; some will be foreshortened and others distant. Recollections are in the eye of the beholder; no two held up side by side will ever quite match."
Rocky Mountain News - Amy Stoll
Extraordinarily detailed, Picoult's exhaustive work fills Vanishing Acts to the brim with realistic suspense, suggesting that often what we choose to remember doesn't astound us nearly as much as what we choose to forget.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family.
The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right.
Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
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Lisa See has written a great book! This story is satisfying on many levels, some scenes horrifying, but seemingly truthful, and her handling of the ...
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UK Orange Award longlist announced(Mar 17 2010) Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters and Barbara Kingsolver have made the longlist for the 2010 Orange Prize, a 20-strong list described by chair Daisy Goodwin as...
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National Book Critics Circle Awards announced(Mar 11 2010) Each March, the NBCC present awards for the finest books and reviews published in English (in the USA) the previous year in six categories: Fiction,...
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Vanishing Acts
New York Times - Janet Maslin
Rocky Mountain News - Amy Stoll
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