Breaking up with Jodi Picoult: The Tenth Circle

The Tenth Circle
by Jodi Picoult
Pages: 416
Published by Allen & Ulwin
Publication Date October 24th 2006
Goodreads

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.

Breaking up is hard to do

• I went through a Jodi Picoult phase when I was in my twenties. True her novels are formulaic but they were still enjoyable and that’s the important thing.
• Unfortunately, that was not the case with The Tenth Circle. While it is a timely book The Tenth Circle just fell flat.
• Jodi Picoult tried to tackle too many topics at once, date rape, infidelity, murder and drug use. If she had focused on one of these subjects the novel could have skimmed by but by including all of them The Tenth Circle felt unfinished and poorly defined.
• Trixie’s character became diminished under the vast plot which only annoyed me.
• Halfway through the book I realized what the “big reveal” would be and begged that it wouldn’t be so. Sadly, my begging was not rewarded and received an unbelivably ridiculous ending which left more loose strings than it tied.
• Unfortunately, in the last few Jodi Picoult books I’ve read I feel her unreliable plots and tired themes are becoming a trend and a regrettable one at that.

Sorry Jodi, but it isn’t working for me anymore and I think it’s best that we make a clean break.

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