The Tenth Circle

If you've read Dante's Inferno, you'll understand what the Tenth Circle references to.
In Dante's inferno there is mention of the nine circles of hell, each circle reserved for a particular sin.

In Jodi Picoult's novel the Tenth Circle is one not mentioned in the novel, one for those who lie to themselves.

The Tenth Circle is about a girl who has been raped by her former boyfriend, after she went over a few boundaries to try and get him back.
It's all a blurry business and you never have got the idea that everyone is telling the truth.
Trixie, our rape victim, doesn't keep this secret but instead tells her father immediately. They go to the police and Jason, the boyfriend, is being arrested on behalf of rape charges.

Shortly after you start to drift as it becomes clear that Trixie isn't that innocent either and that she has lied in her statement.

We jump from person to person and get a glimpse of what Trixie and Jason are thinking, but also Trixie's mother and father, and even the cop who is doing the investigation.
In the end only one character seemed to go beyond the black and whiteness of this story and that's Richard, Trixie's father. He seems the only one alive and able to see past the innocence of his daughter, but not to the extent of seeing Jason as someone who has made a wrong judgment call.
He remains the predator of his daughter's innocence and Richard seeks vengeance.

The story is filled with cliché's: the mother who has an affair and isn't paying attention to her family, the father who suspects this and turns into himself, not paying enough attention to his daughter, the daughter who is speedily becoming a woman and experiments on the way there rather promiscuously and the perfect boyfriend who turns out to have a dark side. Even the cop with a broken past fits into this picture. The town who doesn't believe Trixie because Jason is a hockey star.

All this doesn't make for a believable story, but rather a saturday afternoon movie you'd watch when it's pouring outside, but you forget as soon as it's done.
It reads easily enough, but I don't think I'll remember much of it in a few months. It's not a lingering story, for that to happen it needs to portray the emotional side more than hauling every used up stereotype in this story.
And still it keeps you intrigued while you're reading it.

Salem Falls (A review)

Salem Falls was a nice read. A fast read, for me. I picked it randomly from the hundreds of books on my e-reader and I was glad I liked it.

The reason I liked it, is because it's so straightforward. You have a romance: a guy and a girl, both with awful things in their past, who meet.
You have intrigue. A witches' hunt for justice. And there's also a little courtroom action which I like in small doses.
And of course, the happy ending. Sort of.
Can't say it's happy for every contender.

The story is pretty basic. Jack, a high school teacher accused of sexual harassment, tries to pick up the pieces of his life, after being released from prison. He seeks refuge in a town that shares this novel's title - Salem Falls.
A sign in a diner saying they need a dishwasher, he gets to meet Addie right away since she's the proud owner of said diner.
What we get is passion and raw understanding.
Not too realistic though, but realism isn't something I go look for in a Jodi Picoult book. I want the picture perfect romance and where everything is mostly black and white. What happens to be grey can be forgiven.

Underneath their passion are their secrets. Jack's prison sentence and Addie's deceased child.
It gives them a peculiar platform to hover on top of, especially when the whole town conspires to bringing that bubble down.
How? Jack is being accused again of raping an innocent young girl.
The young girl in question is Gillian, daughter of the town's best known man, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company employing probably half of Salem Falls.

The twist? In a town called Salem, how can it be other than witches? Or maybe Drake Ramoray from Days Of Our Lives? It's gotta be one of those two.

When Jack tumbles down the hill, help comes from an unexpected corner, at least that's what we are supposed to think, but you can see it from miles ahead. Don't get me wrong, that's just what so damn lovable about these novels. A somewhat retired lawyer tries to save jack's sorry little ass, because can you believe it he got struck twice?
Two times falsely accused of sexual harassment.
That's gotta suck.

But like I already said, the happy ending will be delivered. Albeit it a little cold and inedible. I'm no writer, but I could think of a few ways this could've had ended more digestible. It wouldn't lose any Hollywood charm, but add a little punch to that ending.

So I liked it, right up until the end.
The ending didn't do it for me.
Not the 'get out of jail for free' card, I've got no problem with that, but the very last. The last words written about Gillian weren't needed. Well, I didn't need it anyway, it was blatantly obvious what was happening in that household. Didn't need a billboard to figure it out.

Anyway, I got what I expected and I thank Jodi greatly for that.

Review of Nineteen Minutes

 I completely forgot that I hadn't changed my current book. Silly me.
I have read Nineteen minutes by Jodi Picoult since the last time I visited. I've read some of Picoult before (My sister's keeper) and this novel uses the same style. If I hadn't seen a name on this cover I could've guessed it was the same author.

Nineteen minutes tells the story of what happens after a shooting at a highschool. A young student finds himself lost for answers and turns to violence. We follow him, his victims and their families in a search for the truth and more specifically the reason behind it all.

Sometimes you read a novel and it completely sucks you in. You get connected with the world depicted and feel what the characters feel. Everyone who reads regularly knows what I'm talking about.
Nineteen minutes never did this. I never forgot it was fiction, it never grabbed me by the throat despite the subject and despite the very emotional person I've become since my lovely daughter is in my life.
It's a prose I've never been happy with, trying to keep a steady pace, switching back and forth between different characters but never really touching them. The characters felt too twodimensional, lacking a reality. Oddly so did the storyline. You never really get an answer of why he did it. I never got the feeling he was evil or misunderstood. A young student being harassed and bullied, but in some of the thing he did you felt the strong resilience he had. Why did he do it then? And the final climax was anything but believable.
And then I'm not even mentioning the absolutely annoying hollywoodian ending. All's well, ends well?!
It gave me reason to chuck the book to the floor, turn of the light and hoping my next book was going to be better.

If there are any Picoult fans out there. I'm not apologising for my opinion. Not everyone likes what she writes, like there are some people who don't like bananas for some reason.

Review of My Sister's Keeper

This story is about a family dealing with a potentially terminal illness, leukemia. Sara and Brian have a perfect family, with having both a boy, Jesse, and girl, Kate, blessing their life. Until Kate is diagnosed with acute version of leukemia. Their world falls apart and they look desperate for answers and above all a possible cure for Kate.
That's when their third daughter, Anna, came into the world. Designed to be a perfect match for being a donor for Kate, she's hardly born when the first procedure is done. Most of her life is shadowed by the illness of Kate and her giving blood, stamcells and more to keep the disease of Kate at bay.
When she turns 13 she suddenly doesn't want to keep giving her own blood and body to her sister, who keeps deteriorating. When Kate is in need of a kidney, she seeks help to stop her parents leeching of her and try to live her own life.
This is the beginning of an heartbreaking struggle to be heard, a struggle to survive whether you're suffering from leukemia or suffering from being a parent, sister or brother of the one slowly dying.


I've heard a lot about Jodi Picoult, before I picked this novel of her up. It's my first of her novels and she writes painstakingly emotional and realistical. I both loved and hated this novel. I loved it because every novel that evokes emotion from me, aside from disgust, is a winner according to my standards. I cried a lot through the novel and was thoroughly intrigued with how the story unfolded. Sometimes it lacked a little pace, but in life patience is a good virtue.
The reason I hated it, is because since I've become a mother myself I'm especially emotional when it comes to children and losing them. Losing my daughter is losing myself and even reading about someone else possibly losing their child hits me in a very personal way. I can't ignore it, since I've got a kid, I'm very sensitive towards any kind of human suffering, especially children. Even in fictional form, because at this very moment someone is dealing with this in real life. My heart goes out to the parents whose children are seriously sick or injured, and my sympathies for those who are surviving without their children.

Personal rating: 3,5 stars