The Tenth Circle

by Jodi Picoult

I know I said I would get back to stamping after I finished that book last week, but, well, I lied. I picked this book up at a rummage sale for a dollar and I couldn't wait any longer to read it! Jodi is one of my favorite authors of all time, and this is the fifth book I've read by her.

Here is a brief synopsis of the book:

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life -- a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter.
With The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult offers her most powerful chronicle yet as she explores the unbreakable bond between parent and child, and questions whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime -- or if your mistakes are carried forever.

Before I started the book, a friend told me she had read it and didn't care for it (which is never a good way to start a book!) so I was apprehensive going into it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the story, and was drawn deeper and deeper into the characters as the pages flew by. By the middle of the book I was pretty sure it was the best I had read by this author... but then came Picoult's signature story twisting, and it left me confused. It was almost like two separate stories weren't mixed into one and although I couldn't put the book down until I finished it, I ended it just thinking it was a "good" book (as opposed to "great" or "the best ever"). I certainly wasn't as shocked as I had been at the end of her Nineteen Minutes.

I would recommend it to others, as it still has a great story line and plenty of lessons for parents (especially parents of teenagers), but don't feel the need to run out and bump it to the top of your list.