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Vanishing Acts
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Featured Author: Jodi Picoult
Check out Jodi Picoult's novel, Handle with Care, and explore more from the bestselling author at Amazon's Jodi Picoult Page. |
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Delia Hopkins was six years old when her father allowed her to be his assistant in the amateur magic act he performed at the local senior center's annual Christmas pageant. "I learned a lot that night," recalls Delia, who is now 32, at the start of Picoult's absorbing new novel (her 12th, after My Sister's Keeper). "That people don't vanish into thin air...." She has come to know this even better as an adult: she makes her living finding missing people with her own search-and-rescue bloodhound. As she prepares for her wedding, however, Delia has a flash of memory that is so vivid yet so wildly out-of-place among the other memories from her idyllic New Hampshire upbringing that she describes it to a childhood friend, who happens to be a reporter. Soon, her whole world and the world of the widowed father she adores is turned upside down. Her marriage to her toddler's father, a loving but still struggling recovering alcoholic, is put on hold as she is forced to conduct a search-and-rescue mission on her own past and identity. It will cut to the heart of what she holds to be true and good. As in previous novels, Picoult creates compelling, three-dimensional characters who tell a story in alternating voices about what it might mean to be a good parent and a good person, to be true to ourselves and those we love. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
What better title than Vanishing Acts to describe a search-and-rescue worker who turns out to be a missing person herself, as well as the daughter of an amateur magician who makes people disappear? Reviewers praise Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper ***1/2 July/Aug 2004) for her cleverness and her abilities as a storyteller, but her tendency to hang her narratives on Issues-with-a-capital-I has limited appeal. Her 12th novel seems particularly overcrowded with themes and subplots addressing the nature of identity, parental and platonic love, Native American mysticism, prison conditions, alcoholism, memory, and much more. The story is told in first-person narratives presented in alternating chapters by the book’s five main characters, but this contrivance quickly wears thin. All in all, Vanishing Acts is a somewhat muddled effort from the best-selling author.
Delia Hopkins was six years old when her father allowed her to be his assistant in the amateur magic act he performed at the local senior center's annual Christmas pageant. "I learned a lot that night," recalls Delia, who is now 32, at the start of Picoult's absorbing new novel (her 12th, after My Sister's Keeper). "That people don't vanish into thin air...." She has come to know this even better as an adult: she makes her living finding missing people with her own search-and-rescue bloodhound. As she prepares for her wedding, however, Delia has a flash of memory that is so vivid yet so wildly out-of-place among the other memories from her idyllic New Hampshire upbringing that she describes it to a childhood friend, who happens to be a reporter. Soon, her whole world and the world of the widowed father she adores is turned upside down. Her marriage to her toddler's father, a loving but still struggling recovering alcoholic, is put on hold as she is forced to conduct a search-and-rescue mission on her own past and identity. It will cut to the heart of what she holds to be true and good. As in previous novels, Picoult creates compelling, three-dimensional characters who tell a story in alternating voices about what it might mean to be a good parent and a good person, to be true to ourselves and those we love. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
What better title than Vanishing Acts to describe a search-and-rescue worker who turns out to be a missing person herself, as well as the daughter of an amateur magician who makes people disappear? Reviewers praise Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper ***1/2 July/Aug 2004) for her cleverness and her abilities as a storyteller, but her tendency to hang her narratives on Issues-with-a-capital-I has limited appeal. Her 12th novel seems particularly overcrowded with themes and subplots addressing the nature of identity, parental and platonic love, Native American mysticism, prison conditions, alcoholism, memory, and much more. The story is told in first-person narratives presented in alternating chapters by the book’s five main characters, but this contrivance quickly wears thin. All in all, Vanishing Acts is a somewhat muddled effort from the best-selling author.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
You can't exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
custody visit, rec yard, katsina dolls, detention officer, last good day, zip gun Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult, New Hampshire, Andrew Hopkins, Bethany Matthews, Emma Wasserstein, Elephant Mike, Judge Noble, Sheriff Jack, Delia Hopkins, Elise Matthews, Madison Street Jail, Blue Loc, Chris Hamilton, Elise Vasquez, Charles Matthews, Native American, New York, Second Mesa, Spider Grandmother, Aryan Brotherhood, Victor Vasquez, State of Arizona, Maricopa County, San Antonio New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Surprise Me!
You can't exist in this world without leaving a piece of yourself behind. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
custody visit, rec yard, katsina dolls, detention officer, last good day, zip gun Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult, New Hampshire, Andrew Hopkins, Bethany Matthews, Emma Wasserstein, Elephant Mike, Judge Noble, Sheriff Jack, Delia Hopkins, Elise Matthews, Madison Street Jail, Blue Loc, Chris Hamilton, Elise Vasquez, Charles Matthews, Native American, New York, Second Mesa, Spider Grandmother, Aryan Brotherhood, Victor Vasquez, State of Arizona, Maricopa County, San Antonio New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 17
books:
See all 17 books this book cites
5
books
cite this book:
- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Large Print Edition) by Henry D. Thoreau in Front Matter
- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau in Front Matter
- Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel by Jodi Picoult in Front Matter
- A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau in Front Matter
- Listen to Their Voices by Mickey Pearlman on page 399
See all 17 books this book cites
- The Tenth Circle: A Novel by Jodi Picoult in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- Perfect Match: A Novel by Jodi Picoult in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- The Tenth Circle: A Novel by Jodi Picoult in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- in Front Matter
- Journeys: Stories of Pregnancy After Loss by Amy L. Abbey on page 51
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