Journal Entry 1 by nyassa-ici on Friday, January 19, 2007

Synopsis
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own Search and Rescue bloodhound - which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. Then a policeman shows up at her door, arresting her father for the kidnap of a little girl. And Delia's past and present fracture into little pieces. "Vanishing Acts" is a book about the very nature and power of memory. It explores what happens when the past we have been running from catches up to us, and questions who we trust to tell us the story of our lives before we are capable of remembering it ourselves. 

Journal Entry 2 by nyassa from Deal, Kent United Kingdom on Sunday, January 28, 2007

Juat how many "big issues" can you fit into one book! Here we have child abduction, alcoholism, prison life, drug running/manufacture, child abuse, and all of it rather superficial in that they were mentioned but not addressed. In the midst of it all, almost thrown in, we have the native American and the Mexican healer. Busy, busy, busy, and disjointed in places.

I would have been interested if it had gone more into how reliable memory is and how it can deceive us. As it was, it was barely mentioned, but the book really depended on it.

I have to hope that the recipe for making meth is incredibly widely known such that publishing it again has no effect, or that it is inaccurate in some important aspect.

Saying all that, it was nevertheless an entertaining and easy read. It certainly whiled away a few hours.