ReadingFanatic

Title: Vanishing Acts
Author: Jodi Picoult
Pages: 418
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Fiction

About this book:
How do you recover the past when it was never yours to lose?

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her beloved, widowed father, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall...until a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret about herself that changes the world as she knows it -- and threatens to jeopardize her future. With Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how the people we've loved and trusted can suddenly change before our very eyes; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat. Once again, Picoult handles an astonishing and timely topic with under-standing, insight, and compassion.

My thoughts:
I've realized something about Picoult's books, I love the beginning and the ends of her books. The middle...is just OK for me. It doesn't thrill me and it doesn't want to make me read anymore. I push myself to finish because I know the ending is going to be awesome. I think the only book of her's that I enjoyed the middle of was The Pact. Like for example, in Picture Perfect, I liked the beginning and thought that "wow, this book is going to be great" and then the middle was so dull I couldn't stand it. The ending of that book was good and I'm glad that I did end up finishing it. It just goes to show that authors have the same kind of writing though all of their books. One thing about her books though that I'm kinda struggling with though is the love/hate thing that she does with her jail scenes. I like to read about what happens when one of the characters are in jail but then I kinda hate it. I feel like yes, it is important to find out more about that specific character and how they act but then yet, I feel like it's really not important and makes the book boring and just too long. I don't think I've ever felt that way about a book before so it's something new for me. ( Spoilers.... )

Quotes:
When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknon that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes that is what it takes to stake claim. page 54

There is a find line between seeing something that's lost as missing and seeing it as something that might be found. page 55

Sometimes parents don't find what they're looking for in their child, so they plant seeds for what they'd like to grow there instead. I've witnessed this with the former hockey player who takes his son out to skate before he can even walk. Or in the mother who gave up her ballet dreams when she married, but now scrapes her daughter's hair into a bun and watches from the wings of the stage. We are not, as you'd expect, orchestrating their lives; we are not even trying for a second chance. We're hoping that if this one things takes root, it might take up enough light and space to keep something else from developing in our children: the disappointment we've already lived. page 55