Author: Jodi Picoult
Published: 2006
Publisher: Washington Square Press
385 pages (paperback)
Summary: Freshman Trixie Stone knew she was one of the luckiest girls ever when senior Jason Underhill became her boyfriend. He was popular, an athlete and everything a girl could want. But when he breaks up with her, Trixie becomes extremely depressed and at the prodding of her best friend, Trixie decides to try to make Jason jealous by flirting with other boys at a house party they both attended. the night ends disastrously when Trixie’s father, comic book artist Daniel Stone, finds her in their home bathroom in shock and stating that Jason raped her. However, Jason asserts to the police that they had consensual sex, and the school as well as most of the community stands on Jason’s side. Things take a sudden turn for the worse when Jason is murdered and Trixie becomes a suspect in his death.
My Thoughts: This book is seriously full of drama. Crazy drama. High school drama. Soap opera drama. It was honestly so much that it went past the point of believable fiction for me. I think the part where I started to think the plot was too messy was when Jason died, and everyone thought it was suicide. Okay, that still sounds probable. But then it became a murder? The book wasn’t heading in that direction at all. Not only that, but Trixie, who was crazy in love (even though I believe it was puppy love) with Jason, suddenly forgets all about Jason after he dies. She cried and attended his funeral and then that was it, the rest was focused on her trying to run away from the police because she came a suspect in his death. She runs away to Alaska. Alaska?! How does a fifteen year old girl, a suspect to the police, escape to Alaska, which is a whole country away from the States? I mean, you definitely have to take a plane there when you’re in the States, she didn’t walk there. And then randomly falls in love with some other guy while she’s there, despite it being driven in your head that Trixie felt Jason was her one true love, and a supposed rape victim. I honestly had to suspend my belief in order to finish the story, because I was thinking, “This is too ridiculous.” And as usual, there is a typical Jodi Picoult ending — a very bad twist ending that ties up the loose ends a little too conveniently.
Strangely enough, the book is still addicting. I’m not quite sure why, I think maybe it was just so unbelievable and wild that you can’t stop reading about it. It’s kind of like watching The Jersey Shore, if you’ve ever seen that reality TV show — it’s a horrible, terrible, tacky show but you cannot take your eyes off the screen, you just have to keep watching to see what stupid or embarrassing thing the people will do next. And since you don’t know whether Trixie is telling the truth or Jason is telling the truth, you kind of want to keep reading to find out, as well as who murdered Jason (and I can tell you, it is the person you least expect and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense).
I did like the references and relations the story had with Dante’s epic poem, Inferno. While I’ve never read the poem myself (I’m more of a Paradise Lost fan), I am familiar with what the poem is about, and I like the concept of it, and I really liked reading the comics (yes, there are comics!) that are included in the novel (because Trixie’s dad is a comic book artist). I thought that was really neat. But overall, this book was a real miss for me, which is disappointing for me because I generally like Jodi Picoult’s novels, but this one felt like she was trying to mix ten different dramatic plots into one and it was just really over done, in my opinion.
My Rating: 2/5
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