As a third-act whodunit—the culprit is an easy guess—the story fails. Picoult, who is so often an inventive and compelling...
Picoult (Vanishing Act, 2005, etc.) fumbles in this 13th novel of, predictably, a family in crisis.
To all outward appearances, the family Stone seems a happy trio: Mother Laura teaches Dante at the local university; her 14-year-old Trixie is popular, dating the town’s high school hockey hero Jason Underhill; and Daniel, a stay-at-home dad, has finally hit it big with the debut of his own comic book, The Tenth Circle. Inspired by his wife’s work, Daniel’s hero Duncan/Wildclaw descends into hell in search of his kidnapped daughter (sections of the comic book, illustrated by Dustin Weaver, appear at the end of each chapter). As his alter ego tours the circles of hell with Virgil, Daniel’s family begins to unravel: On the night that Trixie is raped by her boyfriend, Daniel discovers Laura has been having an affair with a student. Picoult usually infuses a bit of suspense into her dramas, and this effort is no different as Trixie’s testimony comes into question—is Trixie just out for revenge on the boyfriend who dumped her? As the DA and detective try to build a rape case, Trixie becomes ostracized at school, continues to self-mutilate and then finally attempts suicide. She’s saved in time, but soon after her recovery, Jason is found dead, and it’s beginning to look like Trixie killed him. Afraid she’ll be charged with Jason’s murder, Trixie runs away to the Alaskan Eskimo village where Daniel was raised (and tormented as the only white boy), forcing Daniel to confront his past, save his daughter, save his marriage and make everything okay in the universe, as every superhero should.
As a third-act whodunit—the culprit is an easy guess—the story fails. Picoult, who is so often an inventive and compelling storyteller, relies here on convention and sentimentality.Pub Date: March 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-7434-9670-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
A page-turner in spite of its clunky and cliché-ridden self.
Another emotionally compelling tale that celebrates undying love as two young superheroes overcome bombing raids, starvation, and treacherous friends in Leningrad under siege by the Germans.
As in so many other oversized books of its genre, the lovers here are at the mercy of a plot that strains credulity as it ratchets up the tensions and exploits the passions. When Alexander Belov and Tatiana meet in the summer of 1941, he’s an officer in the Red Army, while she’s a 17-year-old factory worker living in a crowded apartment with her elder sister Dasha, her twin brother Pasha, her parents and grandparents. Alexander is courting Dasha, but Tatiana and he are soon in love. It’s a love they can’t declare, however, because Alexander has a dangerous secret—and a dangerous friend. Alexander in fact is really an American who, as a child in the early 1930s, came to Russia with his idealistic parents. They soon soured on Communism, and, as the Trials began, were arrested. His mother was shot, his father died in prison, but not before Alexander persuaded classmate Dimitri, whose own father was a prison guard, to allow him to see Dad one last time. In return, Alexander promised to take Dimitri to America whenever they found an opportunity to escape to nearby Finland. But Dimitri, with more lives than a cat, is a bad guy and threatens throughout to betray Alexander whenever Alexander seems to be reneging on their plans. When the siege begins, Tatiana is badly wounded in a bombing attack. Recovered, she starts working at a hospital, and, though her family dies one by one as the food supplies dwindle and winter sets in, she survives. Somehow she escapes the city to enjoy a lovers’ idyll with Alexander—only to return to face even graver threats.
A page-turner in spite of its clunky and cliché-ridden self.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-019926-1
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
Written with courage and compassion, this debut novel by Okparanta (Happiness, Like Water, 2013) stunningly captures a young...
In 1968, during the second year of the war between Biafra and Nigeria, 11-year-old Ijeoma is sent away from her home in Ojoto for safety by her mother, Adaora.
Ijeoma’s father, Uzo, is dead, destroyed in a bombing raid that nearly decimated their village, and her mother is quickly unraveling, unable to cope with the ongoing war and famine. But Adaora’s love for her daughter is limitless; when Ijeoma was born early, for example, Adaora gave herself headaches learning about nutrition to make sure her baby grew healthy. Okparanta is masterful at articulating the pressures living through endless violence has on each of her characters' psyches; Adaora crumbles under the harshness of the ongoing war. Her plan is to go to her parents’ house in Aba and see if things are better there while Ijeoma stays with friends in Nnewi; she'll send for the girl to join her when it's safe. But Ijeoma feels this separation is prompted less by necessity than by the fact that Adaora now finds her daughter an impossible burden. Alone in Nnewi, Ijeoma falls in love with another displaced girl, Amina. But when their relationship is discovered, Ijeoma is sent back to her mother, who is determined to teach Ijeoma that two girls can't be romantically involved. In the years following, Ijeoma must reconcile her feelings toward women with the pressure to marry a man and be accepted in a country that makes being gay punishable by death. In language both sparse and lyrical, Okparanta manages to articulate a child's wide-eyed understanding of the breakdown of the world around her. We see, too, a detailed rebuilding of that world along with Ijeoma's maturity into womanhood. Here is writing rich in the beautiful intimacies of people who love each other—and wise about the importance of holding onto those precious connections in a world that is, more often than not, dangerous and cold.
Written with courage and compassion, this debut novel by Okparanta (Happiness, Like Water, 2013) stunningly captures a young girl’s coming of age against the backdrop of a nation at war.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-00344-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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