The Tenth Circle

Angstrat is not of a fan of Ms. Picoult (I look forward to a future bad books review from her on My Sister's Keeper) and what I've read by her has been ok, but not enough to make me join her fan club. This book was a fast interesting read, but I can't say it was amazing. The book is the story of the the Stone family (and may I just say that sentences such as "He followed the Stones to Anchorage" made me think of Mick Jagger and Co. every time?) Daniel is a comic book author, Laura is an English professor who specializes in Dante's Inferno and their 14 year old daughter Trixie is a girl who's heart has been broken at the beginning of the book. (Trixie is named after the Beatrice who was the love of Dante's life, not Trixie Belden, sadly). The story concerns the Trixie's rape and it's aftermath and it is paralleled by the comic book pages Daniel creates of his comic alter ego following his daughter through the circles of Dante's Hell. I think Picoult tried to hard to cram too many things into the plot, but she does write well and it held my attention sitting on the sidewalk outside Barnes and Noble waiting for Harry Potter.