Vanishing Acts (2005)

Goed verhaal maar wel een beetje apart geschreven. Het boek is opgebouwd uit verschillende stukken, steeds gezien van uit een ander personage, Delia, Eric en Fitz en Delia's vader Andrew. Dat is wel overzichtelijk omdat dat steeds boven aan de bladzijde staat. Maar in die stukken springt de schrijfster wel van de ene tijd naar de andere door het personage aan herinneringen uit het verleden te laten denken.
Dat is dan ook meteen een van de thema's in het boek. Wat doen herinneringen met je? Zijn herinneringen wel altijd echt of juist? Of zijn er herinneringen die je denkt te hebben en waar je je eigen interpretatie aangeeft om het mooier of juist slechter te laten lijken.
Er zit wat mij betreft wel wat veel onnodige informatie is. Vooral als het gaat om de gewoontes van de Hopi indianen. Misschien wel aardig om te weten, maar nauwelijks een toevoeging aan het eigenlijke verhaal.
Dat verhaal gaat over Delia die door haar vader is ontvoerd toen ze vier was, maar is het wel een ontvoering als je je eigen dochter meeneemt om haar te beschermen tegen het gedrag van haar moeder waarbij Delia na de scheiding van haar ouders woont. En dat is waar het in dit boek over gaat. Officieel ben je natuurlijk strafbaar als je je kind niet meer terugbrengt na een weekendje bij papa, maar toch moet je doen wat je kunt om je kind te beschermen.
Delia kent Eric en Fitz al vanaf haar kleuterjaren, maar nu zijn ze volwassen en zijn Delia en Eric een koppel met een dochtertje, Sophie en met trouwplannen.
Maar dan staat de politie voor de deur. ( )

Delia Hopkins verbrachte eine glückliche Kindheit, daran bestand bisher nie ein Zweifel. Doch als eines Tages die Polizei ein schreckliches Geheimnis über ihre Familie offenbart, holt eine Vergangenheit Delia ein, von der sie nicht einmal wusste, dass es sie gab … Jodi Picoult erzählt die zutiefst berührende Geschichte einer Frau, und es gelingt ihr, den Wert der Erinnerung und der Liebe fühlbar zu machen.

I love Jodi Picoult stories but I felt that she bit off more than she could chew. Parts of this book are extremely vivid but I felt that there were too many parts and sides to the story. I have been listening to most of her books on audio disc because the small print size hurts my eyes. Changing fonts in different parts of the story was also difficult for me. Recently, I have found that I cannot read italics without pain.

I do think this is worth reading for the story of the kidnapping of the little girl the effect that it had on her and her father. I was a little overwhelmed by the two parts the one that involved the Hopi culture and the extreme detail of prison life. I have read books about prisons before and I knew that would be extra gritty but I did not want to know the step by step to making crystal meth. I will admit that I did not imagine that there were so many steps. The two stories made me want to get on with book. I made it to the end but think that it could have been divided into different parts. I was very interested in the Hopi culture and it also pulled me away from the main storu.. The prison made my skin crawl and set me to thinking about the inmate suicide rates.

The book was a journey but I would never want to reread it. Too gritty, too complex and and too difficult for me.

I will continue to search for Jodi Picoult's books on audio discs. ( )

A real page turner for me, I read it in just a couple of days. At the same time, however, I found it tiresome in that it was 1. overly long, 2. constantly changing narrators between the main characters, 3. padded with a lot of cheap philosophizing. Well one of these 'gems ' of wisdom is that no action is all right or all wrong, so while I found it a compelling story, the book as a whole had a few flaws. ( )

I enjoy the works of Jodi Picoult. She is an author who writes of moral dilemmas not easy to paint as black or white. In this book, Delia Hopkins is a successful search and rescue specialist. With her dog at her side, she is usually successful in finding and returning those who are lost. She has a small child and is able to put herself in the place of those in need.

After her mother died in a traffic accident, she was raised by her beloved father, He is loving, kind and, by standards, does a remarkable job in raising his only child. A model citizen of a small New Hampshire town, her father was responsible for creating an elderly home where all are treated safely in their later years.

As she makes plans to marry the father of her child, her world becomes upside down, and now she feels lost and no search and rescue operation could help find her and put her back the way she was before she learned that her mother was not dead, her birth name is Beth, and her father is wanted for abduction in the state of Arizona.

Meeting her mother who does not fit her imagined person, does not go as well as she hoped. Though, after the meeting, she has no doubt that this is her biological mother, and that her father took her away from a situation wherein her mother was an out-of-control alcoholic who was not a good mother by any standard.

At the trial, Delia is torn. She knows how she would feel if her child was abducted, yet, she loves her father and knows he took her away, fleeing a harsh woman who could not in any circumstances do what was best for the child. It's been 28 years, and now the authorities and Delia's mother want retribution.

3.75 Stars