article by Anne van Oirschot

The book discussion group had a very nice evening on Wednesday, September 8th catching up on summer activities, chatting about plans for the coming year, welcoming a new club member and reader to our group, enjoying tea and cookies,,,oh, and discussing Vanishing Acts, by Jodi Picoult.  We really had a lot to catch up on after not seeing each other for months 🙂

While I enjoyed the book, it got rather mixed reviews from the rest of the group. The story follows Delia and her father Andrew, who live in a small new England town and starts with the police coming to arrest Andrew for kidnaping 4 year old Bethany years earlier. Bethany turns out to be his daughter Delia, now grown, who knows nothing about her previous life! The book follows Delia, her father, Delia’s fiancé and a chil
dhood friend  in the period leading up to Andrew’s trail ,as well Bethany/Delia’s mother. While everyone liked most of the book and enjoyed the story’s telling by alternating between the viewpoints of the different main characters, the ending was found a bit too pat by some. The central question of, “is it ever acceptable to kidnap a child” wasn’t answered the same by everyone either. Sondra had a surprising and crucial tidbit that the rest of us were surprised to have missed…but did we??? All in all, it was an enjoyable evening and we are all looking forward to our next discussion evening! (Our next book is:  A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (a Pulitzer price winner) so mark your calendars for Tuesday, October 13th and plan to join us!)