Vanishing Acts

Jodi Picoult never seems to fail me as an entertaining read. Her storylines hit home and there's always a twist that you can't predict even though you know there's going to be a twist.

Delia Hopkins has lived with her father sincer her mother died when she was a young child. She works search-and-rescue with her dog and is always being called out to find one lost child or another. She has lived a charmed life with the undying love of her father. THEN, one day while she was visiting her father with her daughter, a police officer knocks on the door and arrests her father for kidnapping. That's right, KIDnapping! Turns out Delia was the one he kidnapped some 30ish years ago.

Her father is brought back to Arizona where the original crime took place. Delia follows and finds out that her mother is still alive and begins to develop a relationship with her and her husband Victor. Her father is now on trial and begins to tell the story of why he kidnapped Delia so many years ago.

Her father and mother were split up. Her mother was a raging alcoholic. When her father, Andrew came to pick up Delia for visitation, her mother was passed out on the couch in her own vomit and there was feces all over the floor. He had also had suspicions that Mom's new boyfriend was being a little too friendly with Delia. All of this combined, let Andrew to take his daughter across the country and raise her without abuse, with constant love and devotion.

Eventually, given the circumstances, Andrew was acquitted and Life returns to normal. They all go back east to their homes and live happily ever after. This was a very compassionate novel. Here's my favorite quote: "You think you k now the world you are living in. If you can feel it, and touch it, and smell it, and taste it, then it must be so. You tell yourself that you would bet your life on the simple fact that the sky is blue. And then one day someone comes along and informs you emphatically that you're wrong."

Great book!