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| View Larger Image | The Tenth Circle: A Novel
by Jodi Picoult
| | List Price: | $15.00 | | Price: | $10.20 | | You Save: | $4.80 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 2916 | | Studio: | Washington Square Press | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 416 | | Publication Date: | October 24, 2006 | | Publisher: | Washington Square Press |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
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. |
Amazon.com
Bestselling author Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle is a metaphorical journey through Dante's Inferno, told through the eyes of a small Maine family whose hidden demons haunt every aspect of their seemingly peaceful existence. Woven throughout the novel are a series of dramatic illustrations that pay homage to the family's patriarch (comic book artist Daniel Stone), and add a unique twist to this gripping, yet somewhat rhetorical tale. Trixie Stone is an imaginative, perceptive 14 year old whose life begins to unravel when Jason Underhill, Bethel High's star hockey player, breaks up with her, leaving a void that can only be filled by the blood spilled during shameful self-mutilations in the girls' bathroom. While Trixie's dad Daniel notices his daughter's recent change in demeanor, he turns a blind eye, just as he does to the obvious affair his wife Laura, a college professor, is barely trying to conceal. When Trixie gets raped at a friend's party, Daniel and Laura are forced to deal not only with the consequences of their daughter's physical and emotional trauma, but with their own transgressions as well. For Daniel, that means reflecting on a childhood spent as the only white kid in a native Alaskan village, where isolation and loneliness turned him into a recluse, only to be born again after falling in love with his wife. Laura, who blames her family's unraveling on her selfish affair, must decide how to reconcile her personal desires with her loved ones' needs. The Tenth Circle is chock full of symbolism and allegory that at times can seem oppresive. Still, Picoult's fans will welcome this skillfully told story of betrayal and its many negative, and positive consequences. --Gisele Toueg |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 229 reviews)
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This book goes in circles, and leads nowhere 
I had high hopes for 'The Tenth Circle', after being blown away by 'My Sister's Keeper'. Unfortunately, while that book had all the ingredients for great fiction-likeable, sympathetic characters, heavy, yet still believable drama, and a story that leaves a deep emotional impact on the reader-'The Tenth Circle' has almost none of those.
Most of the other critics have already pinpointed the book's biggest problem: lack of focus. Picoult never quite figures out what she wants this story to be about, and who the target audience should be. Part teenage romance, part crime drama, part comic book adventure, part character study, with an extensive, but largely uninteresting travel guide to Alaska thrown in.
The Stones never really captured my sympathy. Instead, I found Daniel and Laura to be self-absorbed, while Trixie, supposedly the 'wronged girl', never really amounted to anything. The connection with Daniel's 'mysterious past' in Alaska turned out to be a waste of time, and the abrupt scene shift to the 'frozen north' late in the story just reminds us what a waste of time the first two-thirds of the story is.
Much of the teenage characterization seemed to be ripped off from old 'Afterschool Specials' or those 'young adult' novels that used to be so popular, back when Picoult herself was a teenager. As much as Picoult tried to give Trixie some depth and maturity, she just came across as a whiny, sluttish brat who was just as self-centered as her parents and her friends. The whole book had the feel of a cheesy, cheaply-made TV-movie, populated with 'B'-list soap stars.
The main characters are interesting to start, but their limited appeal wears off quickly: Daniel as the stereotypical 'moody young artist', and Laura as the 'career-oriented yuppie' who gives in to her 'adventurous nature' and settles down with 'comic book boy'. The real-life comic book references are accurate(Siegel and Shuster, Jack Kirby and his 'krackle' special effects), but gratuitous, thrown in simply to establish Picoult's comic book 'cred' with a new audience of readers she doubtless wanted to bring in for this book. The comic-strip version of the story was certainly a more interesting take on the basic premise, but it, too, was ultimately a disappointment. The current 'trendy' style of comic art is a far cry from the stuff those of us who read comics prior to the mid-90s would remember. While Picoult does have some experience in comics (having written a few issues of 'Wonder Woman'),her treatment of the genre in this book seems half-hearted and gimmicky. I can see how it would turn off anyone who's not interested in comics, but even I got tired of it once the novelty wore off. The whole 'look for the hidden message' gimmick really seemed like pandering,both to the comic fans and those who would otherwise have avoided reading the cartoons.
On the other hand, I had never read Dante's 'Inferno', so I found the descriptions in the text helped make the comic a little easier to decipher. Each of the characters definitely had his/her own 'circle of hell' to get through, but I just found all of them too flawed and 'anti-heroic' to care about. Considering how poorly Picoult did at trying to integrate the 'Alaska' subplot with the rest of the story, she might as well have just left it out completely. Another example of an author doing a lot of research on language, customs, culture, etc., and doing a clumsy job of squeezing everything in to an already-overcrowded story.
'My Sister's Keeper' was one of the best books I ever read, yet I found the ending too painful to give it the high rating I had planned on giving it. In contrast, 'Circle' is just long and tiresome, draining every bit of interest and suspense out of a story that didn't generate very much of either in the first place. I ended up finishing the book just to finish it. I cared nothing for any of the Stones, and was simply left thinking they were a miserable bunch who deserved each other.
I can imagine it would be difficult for any author to top a book like 'Keeper'...but 'Circle' doesn't even come close.
One of the few mildly entertaining scenes involves Daniel and young Trixie discussing the best super power to have. If I could turn back time, much like Superman in his first movie, so that I'd never read this book...I'd really be tempted to try it!
July 27, 2008 | |
Not my favorite, but still worth reading 
I've been a big fan of Picoult's for several years now, since I read Keeping Faith. Since then I've counted her among my favorite authors and enjoyed book after book, especially The Pact and My Sister's Keeper.
One thing I love about her books is that they are always so well-researched and run the gamut from light-hearted to gut-wrenching. There aren't many authors who so consistently keep me awake after a long day at work because I *have* to finish the chapter before I can go to sleep. And usually, one chapter turns into 2 and well, there have been a lot of groggy mornings due to Picoult!
Usually it takes me about a week to finish one of Picoult's novels. The Tenth Circle was an exception. It was over a year before I finally managed to get through ~400 pages. It was really only the first few chapters that seemed to drag on and on, but with such long chapters it seemed brutal. Once it started to pick up, I ended up enjoying it, and as always it seemed to end too quickly, but it definitely took awhile to get into.
I'm admittedly not a comic fan, which may have hampered my enjoyment. I am a fan of Dante's Inferno, so I did appreciate that tie-in and all of it's elements. This just seemed really different from her other works that I've enjoyed and I think it's one of the only ones so far that I'm not likely to pick up and re-read (I've read The Pact 3x).
I did enjoy the puzzle, that was certainly a treat!
July 23, 2008 | |
Not one of my favorites by Picoult
THE TENTH CIRCLE by Jodi Picoult
July 22, 2008
Amazon Rating: 3/5 stars
THE TENTH CIRCLE has two main stories embedded in one. The main story is the one that follows the daughter, and the prologue involves Trixie getting lost as a toddler and her father freaking out, worried that she may have been kidnapped. This scene misled me to think the story would have a kidnapping scenario, but it didn't. It is hinted that this one experience maimed Trixie for life, and hurt her psychologically. From the story and the choices she made, yes, she had a lot of psychological problems, but they were never dealt with at any point - there are scenes where she gets into self mutilation. But at the same time, after reading the entire book, I feel that this intro with Trixie getting lost did not really connect with the rest of the book. I totally forgot it even happened, until I started writing this review.
Trixie, in the main body of the book, is a teenager who is having peer pressure issues. She just lost a boyfriend who was considered THE guy to be with, and because she had been dating him, she had been included with the "in group". Without him, she was considered one of the geeks, the outcasts. Upon the breakup, Trixie falls apart and is desperate. She cannot live without Jason. It's at a party that Trixie and her best friend decide that Trixie needs to make Jason jealous, and in a drunken state Trixie flirts and makes out with various guys at the party, and eventually ends up at a strip poker game with just four of them. It is just she and Jason, and his best friend Moss and her best friend Zephyr. It doesn't end on a good note. It's this event after the poker game that changes everything. This one single act changes the lives of many people, and is so devastating that it ends in tragedy.
The other story is that of Daniel and Laura Stone (Trixie's parents) marriage, their histories, and Laura's affair. In the midst of it all, Daniel is writing a comic strip based on his life and mirrors his need to protect his daughter. Daniel has a secret past, one that his family does not know. He's run away from it, a past that started with his childhood in Alaska. He's a changed person from what he was back then, but Trixie's problems with her boyfriend Jason will bring it all back.
While I'm giving this book a 3 star rating, it was not one of my favorites by Jodi Picoult. While I felt it was rather unique to intersperse the comics with each chapter, I felt they were distracting and they broke the mood of the main story. I get it that the father was a comic book artist, and I also got that the story in the book paralleled the comic book hero's story, but I still feel somewhat that this was unnecessary. On the other hand, it did make this a unique reading experience, and it's a book I won't forget. I'll always remember THE TENTH CIRCLE as the book with the super hero comic strip.
In terms of the story line - I am not sure what to think. I didn't like any of the characters, meaning I had no sympathy with any one of them: not the mom, who was having a secret life on the side, not the daughter who was living a life that her parents didn't know about, not the father who had a checkered past. Now, I never give a bad rating just because I don't like the characters. I attribute the creation of unlikable characters to good writing and realistic characters that I just happen to not care for. If I met them on the street, they wouldn't be my friends. I can't relate to them or the choices they made. I am not condemning any of the characters either, for what they did. But something about them I just didn't connect with.
One of the problems I had with the story line was the last section of the book that took us to Alaska. Yes, I get that Daniel was from Alaska, but I found that moving the story line to Alaska turned the book into am almost epic story, which I felt was unnecessary. The book was already on a grand scale close to being a soap opera, and I felt that this change in location broke the mood of the story. I would have liked it better if things were resolved in a courtroom, but as readers will find out, this doesn't happen for reasons I won't disclose.
3 stars isn't a bad rating, but I've always given her books a 4. THE TENTH CIRCLE is definitely not one of my favorite Jodi Picoult stories, but at the same time, it still kept my interest and it didn't' take me long to finish it.
July 23, 2008 | |
A Thoughtprovoking Novel... 
I recently discovered this gem of a Picoult book and I'm surprised at some of the negative reviews I see written by others. I found this novel refreshing in it's combination of the written story and the parallel graphic novel elements. After I read the book, I actually went back and studied the graphic parts as there's so much happening in them. I won't give away the plot, but Picoult writes about contemporary issues facing many families today, especially those with teens. I found this was very interesting and each part made me want to read more. I loved the incorporation of Dante's Circles of Hell, so that intrigued me as well. I can see where some might find parts over the top, or unbelievable, but I wasn't looking for a documentary. I think this argument could be said about any of Picoult's books. I wanted an entertaining story that made me think and this one did exactly that. I'm still discussing this one with others that have read it. Since I have a teenager at home, this book also opened up some serious discusssions with my daughter. I don't know what higher compliment I can give the book than that.
July 17, 2008 | |
Sorry, Not a Rape-- SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
There's a lot of problems with this book. The biggest one, to me, is that puts the credibility of any woman who says that they've been raped into question. I can't imagine reading this book as a real rape victim, and thinking that I should have sympathy for the main character, 14 year old Trixie.
It's nearly impossible to care about Trixie after you find out what she did-- from lying to her parents about being a virgin before the incident after having sex dozens of times, from actually BUYING the ketamine (which was found in her system and sealed the case against the ex-boyfriend Jason), to never actually saying "No" when having sex with Jason. One thing that we all need to understand is that we can't expect anyone, boyfriends, partners, husbands, teachers, to be mind-readers. To other females out there-- if you don't want to do something, from kissing to having sex to doing the dishes, you need to SAY IT.
To me, Trixie was trying to take what was a bad emotional/sexual experience (realizing that the man she loved didn't love her, having painful sex) and turning it into a crisis. Instead of examining her choices, and thinking to herself, "well, that was awful, I'll never do that again--[fill in the blank-- let someone use me, equate sex with love, get trashed and come onto a guy without really thinking if I want to be physical with him, buy drugs] she construes the one incident as ruining her, believes that she is tarnished, that her world is now divided into "before rape" and "after rape."
This girl needed to read some Camille Paglia, get over herself, realize she did a dumb thing and she would never do it again, and not think that a terrible night where some bad things happened should define her life from that moment on.
Two things that really bothered me were that 1. Trixie didn't tell anyone that she had bought the ketamine, and was going to let the ex-boyfriend take the fall (and get tried as an adult). What cowardice. 2. That she didn't tell the police (or at least her PARENTS) what really happened-- that she never once said no to sex that night with Jason, and she couldn't even show physically that she didn't want to have sex because of the ketamine (which, again, SHE BOUGHT). Basically, she was going to allow someone else to go to jail to save her own reputation. Sorry, sister, that doesn't fly. All women were 14 years old once, but I doubt many of us would be that selfish.
On a good note, I thought the father Daniel Stone was a well-developed, interesting character and I loved the sequences in the Alaskan bush. Picoult is obviously a good writer. Too bad the main female character in this was such a drag.
July 14, 2008 | |
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