Tenth Circle is written in the same accessible style as Judi Picoult's previous books. You know you SHOULD be doing something, but you just want to finish to the next break, the next page, well, OK the next chapter. Then she's left in such a place you just have to read the first bit of the next chapter..... And you don't get anything else done. (At least that is how her books are for me.)
As with all Picoult's books there is a family unit central to the story, and a drama unfolds, as it unfolds it reveals things that members of the family would rather not see the light of day. I know that sounds very formulaic, but that is where any predictability ends. Of the Picoult books I have read the stories are very different. So is this one.
At first I thought the story might unfold in a similar way to "Lucky" by Alice Sebold, but the only real similarity between these two books is that they both feature a rape, and the consequences that unfold afterwards.
There is more than one way to lose a child.
Daniel Stone thought it would never happen to him. How could it, when Trixie's face lit up every time she saw him, when for her whole life he'd been the centre of her world? But recently it seems, without noticing it, his daughter is gone, and in her place is a stranger.
Until the night fourteen-year=old Trixie comes home from a party claiming she was raped, and suddenly she needs him more than ever. Because the whole school knew Jason Underhill broke Trixie's heart, but that doesn't make him a rapist, does it?
For Daniel, there is no doubt: his daughter is innocent. He has failed to protect her once. Now he will do anything to protect her.
Daniel, the father, is a graphic artist, drawing for Marvell comics, his wife, Laura, a college, (Uni for UK readers,) lecturer. Her specialism is Dante's Inferno. This is where the book's title come from, in Dante's Inferno there are only Nine Circles of Hell.
If you wish to know more about Picoult and her books click on the following link. It will take you straight to the info about The Tenth Circle, but if you click home you can find general information, and information about her other books.
http://www.jodipicoult.com/
Labels: fiction