... He ends up in the sleepy little town of Salem Falls and is offered a job in Addie's diner and tries to put his past behind him and build a new life.
Addie Peabody has a few skeletons in her closet of her own. She lives a solitary life following the death of her only daughter; her life consists ... Read review
Advantages: gripping story Disadvantages: I didnt like the way paganism was portrayed.
...the sleepy little town of Salem Falls and is offered a job in Addie's diner and tries to put his past behind him and build a new life.
Addie Peabody has a few skeletons in her closet of her own. She lives a solitary life following the death of her only daughter; her life consists of running her diner and keeping tabs on her widowed alcoholic father. She is curious about this stranger who is obviously well educated, what ... ... The townsfolk of Salem Falls are not happy to have a convicted rapist in their midst and try to run Jack out of town fearing that their own daughters will be his next victim. One night the worst does happen, a sobbing Gillian Duncan is discovered by the edge of the woods with her clothes dishevelled and sporting bruises and scratches. Forensic testing shows that Jacks DNA is found underneath her fingertips and semen is found on her thigh. ... more
When ex teacher Jack St Bride is released from prison after serving a sentence for raping a schoolgirl he is homeless and penniless. He ends up in the sleepy little town of Salem Falls and is offered a job in Addie's diner and tries to put his past behind him and build a new life.
Addie Peabody has a few skeletons in her closet of her own. She lives a solitary life following the death of her only daughter; her life consists of running her diner and keeping tabs on her widowed alcoholic father. She is curious about this stranger who is obviously well educated, what has led him to washing dishes for minimum wage? The pair soon become lovers and Addie is shocked to hear about Jacks past but believes him when he explains that the rape conviction is false and he only pled guilty on his lawyers advice to get a short sentence.
Gillian Duncan is the most popular girl in town, her father runs a pharmaceutical firm and she is used to getting what she wants when she wants it. She and her friends are warned to stay away from Jack but can't resist flirting with danger by going to the diner to watch him work.
The townsfolk of Salem Falls are not happy to have a convicted rapist in their midst and try to run Jack out of town fearing that their own daughters will be his next victim. One night the worst does happen, a sobbing Gillian Duncan is discovered by the edge of the woods with her clothes dishevelled and sporting bruises and scratches. Forensic testing shows that Jacks DNA is found underneath her fingertips and semen is found on her thigh. Jack swears he is innocent but is so drunk he can't fully remember the events of that night. Has Jacks true nature been revealed or are there other more sinister forces at work in Salem Falls?
This is the second of Jodi Picoult's books I've read and this book was a real page turner. I initially found it quite difficult to get into the story as it jumped between different threads of the story in different paragraphs but once I got into it I couldn't put it down.
Rape is always going to be an emotive issue to write about and I found the handling of the subject to be done mostly sensitively. The fact that they talked about false allegations was balanced with one of the characters being a real rape victim. It makes you wonder if laws like Megan's Law in the USA or Sarah's Law in the UK are a good idea. On one hand I'd want to know if a sex offender was living in my neighbourhood but on the other vigilantes mean that men like Jack who are falsely accused of rape can have their lives ruined.
What I didn't like about the book was the treatment of paganism. It emerges that Gillian and her friends have been dabbling in witchcraft, buying herbs to cast spells and dance around the woods naked jumping over fires to celebrate Beltane. I found this to be inaccurate and sensational; I have a good friend who is a practicing pagan and on all of the major festivals she sends all her friends a greeting explaining the significance of the celebrations and her faith is certainly nothing like the paganism in the book. I also attended a celebration of the Winter Solstice with her and it was an amazingly peaceful evening and while we took the dog for a walk in the woods no bonfires were lit and we kept all of our clothes on! I'll admit she can be a little kooky at times for example advising me to stop my daughter's medication for her kidney disease and having her drink herbal infusions instead but I don't like it when pagans are made out to be total weirdoes.
I found the story and the characters were well formed but there were a couple of sub plots which were a bit superfluous. The book delved right into the characters past letting you knows what made them tick and understand their viewpoints a bit better.
I really enjoyed Salem Falls despite its flaws and am looking for the other Jodi Picoult books I have not yet read. I woke up during the night and decided to read a couple of chapters as I couldn't get back to sleep and ended up having to force myself to put the book down two hours later leaving me even more bleary eyed than usual in the morning! It's a really good book that will have you on the edge of your seat wanting to know what will happen next.
Advantages: Wonderfully written, Engaging, Hard to put down Disadvantages: Deals with some quite uncomfortable issues
Salem Falls, the 2001 novel from celebrated author Jodi Picoult, is, by her own admission, a reworking of Arthur Millers "The Crucible", taking contemporary issues and fashioning them into a modern day witch hunt. It centres around a sleepy New Hampshire town of the same name. The town, like many, seems entirely innocent on the surface, but hoards a past of corruption, assaults, greed, violence and (intriguingly, but less dangerously) witchcraft. ... ...by the same author!). Salem Falls isn't her best, but that doesn't mean that it's not brilliant. In my opinion, she is a very talented, precise and thought provoking author. I'm about to embark on a quest to read the rest of her back catalogue (having only come across her a few months ago!).
Happy reading! ...
cocoklo 23.12.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
Advantages: Interesting issues to debate, superb characters Disadvantages: Plot problems, doesn't realise full potential
Salem Falls reminded me of another of Jodi Picoult’s books, Perfect Match; perhaps partly because it’s a novel that doesn’t realise its full potential, but also because it deals with the difficult topic of sexual abuse and false accusation, albeit in very different circumstances. This time, the main character is not the victim, but the accused. Jack St Bride arrives in the small New Hampshire town of Salem Falls in a taxi. He has ill-fitting clothes ... ...greater than theirs. Salem Falls is a highly enjoyable novel that, in true Picoult style, creates more questions than it answers and provides the perfect platform for debate. The most important question is whether an accusation of rape should be enough to convict someone. There is a huge problem with the appallingly low conviction rape for rape and, at one point, even Jack muses that imprisoning innocent people is worth it if it protects rape victims. ...
DoubleFantasy11 13.08.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
Advantages: An amazing book to read absolutely page turning and unputdownable Disadvantages: none I dont think
...Bride has stumbled upon quiet Salem Falls after serving an eight month sentence in jail for taking a plea bargain on sexual assault. He swears he’s innocent and was pushed into taking the plea bargain as his lawyer told him it would be the shortest sentence he could have, get out of jail and then live his life again. He used to be a history teacher, and it was his student Catherine that came up with the sexual assault charges against him. When he ... ...as a dishwasher - a far cry from his old life back in Loyal but he’s happy all the same. However this time round, he falls in love with Addie, a woman who lost her child to meningitis almost a decade ago. Everyone has ghosts in their closets, and Addie especially. However one evening after a fight with each other, jack goes out drinking and stumbles upon a group of four young witches in the forest celebrating Beltane, the witches festival for love, ...
angiebabyqueen 15.07.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
Advantages: Fast paced, page turner Disadvantages: Sometimes wooden characters
...same. So when I saw Salem Falls in a charity shop whilst perusing for books for my latest holiday, I decided to give it a go. Now, whether it was the sunny disposition I was in whilst in Greece, or the jugs of wine I was drinking whilst reading the book, I was pleasantly surprised by it all.
The book focuses on the main character Jack St Bride who has been released from jail after being wrongly accused of raping an underage pupil at the school where ... ...and of course with the Salem references. It's witch-hunting with a modern and more relevant twist. Picoult addresses a controversial and very topical subject with the girl who cried rape, and this is a subject close to my heart. The book highlights the turmoil a man can go through when wrongly accused, rather than typically focusing on the woman's view. This makes a refreshing change and I believe that Picoult really hit the note right with Jack's ...
charlie-clough 19.12.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
Advantages: A great read Disadvantages: I've finished it
...it on? And now - Salem Falls, yet another great read.
The Hook:
As with all of the books that I have read by Jodi Picoult it is her style of writing that I find to be the hook. No matter whereabouts in the book I am I just do not want to put it down. I literally have to be falling asleep, (or recently glancing at the clock just knowing that there is no chance that I will get up for work in the morning.) to put these books down!
As with the other ... ...a range of characters in Salem Falls. Having read the Pact only a few months ago, I was pleasantly suprised to find myself reading a familiar name as I got about a third of the way through the book. Jordan McAfee and his son Thomas appeared in Salem falls. As a started to read this section I wondered if the author had simply re-used the name, but as I read on I realised that it was indeed the defense attorney who had defended the boy from The Pact.
...
lynh17 11.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult
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Advantages: Well written Disadvantages: a bit boring, predictable
One of my best findings late last year was JodiPicoult. So far I have read four of her novels: "My Sister's Keeper", "The Pact", "SalemFalls" and lastly "Plain Truth".
I find all her books extremely well written and well researched. However, "Plain Truth" didn't live up to my expectations, perhaps because once you read many books by one author one begins to know their style, how their heads work and what the plot is going to be like.
Therefore, once again I guessed the end of the story and it was a bit dull having to read more than half the book knowing what the ending would be.
"Plain Truth" is about an Amish girl that has a baby outside the wedlock. For the Amish, this is not something well accepted. In fact, for the Amish a lot that modern society accepts as common, the Amish strongly deny. They live up to their ...
Advantages: Highly addictive well written story. Disadvantages: Couldn't put it down so didn't get anything done.
even more addictive. I think the idea of bringing the both into this one novel works really well and their relocations are described really convincingly.
This is unbelievably the ninth book by JodiPicoult that I have read and I have to say that I?m looking forward to reading the others. If you haven?t read any of this author?s books yet then I urge you to go out and get this one. It really is one that will keep you reading right to the last word.
***JodiPicoult?s Other Books***
Plain Truth
My Sister?s Keeper
Vanishing Acts
SalemFalls
The Pact
Perfect Match
Keeping Faith
The Tenth Circle
Mercy
These ones will be out in the UK soon.
Second Glance
Songs Of The Humpback Whale
Harvesting The Heart
Picture Perfect
***Price and Availability***
This hardback book is available for the publishing price of £14 ...
Advantages: Thought provoking, well written. Disadvantages: Not a very happy story.
will have you putting yourself in every characters place, trying to come up with an answer. You will see there is no easy solution.
More info:
Pages: 422
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
The book is available in paperback, hardback and as an e-book.
The paperback version of the book has a RRP of £6.99, which it will probably be in most bookshops, but it can currently be found on Amazon for £3.99, Play.com - £5.49 and cheapest of all Tesco.com at £3.89.
Other titles by JodiPicoult: Plain Truth, Vanishing Acts, The Pact, Mercy, SalemFalls, Second Glance, Keeping Faith, Picture Perfect, Harvesting the Heart, Songs of the Humpback Whale.
For more information about the author and her work check out her website: http://www.jodipicoult.com/ ...
Jack St. Bride was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' private school - until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his career and reputation. Now, after a devastatingly public ordeal that left him with an eight-month jail sentence and no job, Jack resolves to pick up the pieces of his life. He takes a job washing dishes at Addie Peabody's diner and slowly starts to form a relationship with her in the quiet New England village of Salem Falls. But just when Jack thinks he has outrun his past, a quartet of teenage girls with a secret turn his world upside down once again, triggering a modern-day witch hunt in a town haunted by its own history ...
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