Title: Vanishing Acts
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Pages: 418
Maybe it was the context of reading this book – sitting in a hospital waiting for my dad to finish non-emergency surgery, but I groaned and complained all the way through this book. At first I found the main character, Delia, to be intriguing and heroic. But, then her reaction to her father's arrest and her constant whining, yet enabling of her fiancee's drinking and the love triangle got tedious and I couldn't wait for the book to end. Though, I have to admit, I was hooked on the how the fiancee was going to finagle the trial to get the father acquitted – but I could have watched any episode of Law & Order and had more fun.
Each chapter is told by a different main character in the book. Delia was “abducted” by her own father as a small child and they started a new life together, with Delia believing her mother was dead. As an adult, with a daughter of her own, Delia works with her dog as a search and rescue team to find missing children. (Yes, the irony couldn't be more obvious). With multiple successful cases, her newspaper clippings leads to the uncovering of her own abduction, for which her father is arrested. Come to find out, her mother was an alcoholic (hmmm...so Delia becomes involved with one) and Delia was possibly molested by her mother's boyfriend, which led Delia's father to taking her and starting a new life. Within this, there is an up-close and personal look of the father's life in prison (too harsh and too graphic for me), the struggle of the love triangle of Delia, her fiancee, and their best friend/reporter, and Delia rediscovering who she really is.
I enjoyed My Sister's Keeper, and had hopes for this one but found the storyline too predictable and the characters too flat.
