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theavidreaderandbibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
Moral Compass by Danielle Steel is different from the authors other novels. It delves into the serious topic of teenage drinking and a female being assaulted. Saint Ambrose Preparatory School is admitting female students for the first time in its history. Taylor Houghton IV, the headmaster, knows that his career is on the line so this venture must be a success. There are no problems until Halloween arrives and some students decide to bring out alcohol they have sneaked onto campus. Campus security receive a late night anonymous call that has them finding a female student unconscious. She must have her stomach pumped from the vast quantities of alcohol consumed and a SAFE exam performed. The book follows the investigation along with the trial and its outcome. We see the consequences of making the decision to overindulge in alcohol and how it affects others. I thought the story was well-written and it proceeded at a steady pace. I like how the author dealt with the such terrible and relevant topic of violence against a young woman. Moral Compass is a timely novel (what people call “ripped from the headlines”) that hopefully will allow people to see that the victim should not be blamed when they are assaulted. The victim is not on trial nor should they be. Moral Compass allows readers to see this sensitive issue dealt with from various points-of-view. Moral Compass is a compelling story whose title truly fits.
booklover4887's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
berlylovestoread's review against another edition
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Danielle still has a bit of "man of the house" in her writing and I don't believe that an expensive boarding school wouldn't have electronically monitored doors, security patrolling the campus and cameras everywhere but if you extend that grace it's a good book.
nannykaren's review against another edition
5.0
I have all of Danielle's books. All of them I've loved. This one felt more current than others. Loved it.
sophiaabachnou's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
cherylbookcollins's review against another edition
4.0
I missed closure on all of the characters in the end. It would have only taken a few more pages to wrap up each of their stories.
mom2triplets04's review against another edition
4.0
Really a 3.5 rating but I’m rounding it to 4. I read this pretty quickly but I found myself skipping words which I don’t normally do. Felt it was too descriptive and had too many characters which got confusing. Would have liked more character development. I used to be a fan of Steel many years ago and just recently picked up her new releases. I didn’t like this one as much as her last book. Will certainly be reading more from her.
tennisgirl27's review against another edition
1.0
The only reason I finished this book is because it is very short (only a few hours of reading) otherwise I would have set it aside it and not finished it. The writing was too simple and the entire book could have been written in three chapters. The character development was horrible and the she throws a random out of place romance in there that left me scratching my head. This just wasn’t a great book at all and for this reason I am only giving this a 1/5.
juliat2006's review against another edition
medium-paced
1.5
A pretty cover for a deceptive and disappointing book.
The blurb for this book was promising. However, as I read the book, I realised that the violence made out on the blurb was much different to that in the book. I picked up this book because I assumed the people had gotten into a brutal fight, not that the violence was sexual in nature. As far as I'm aware, there was no trigger warning for this book - and it should have come with one.
The whole incident came out of nowhere, was described very bluntly and then was over as soon as it started. My jaw was agape from shock over what I was reading. This is probably where I should have dropped the book, but I didn't. The aftermath of this wasn't treated to well either, since the author tried to gather sympathy for the rapist.
Let's go back to the beginning. In the first chapter, the majority of the characters were introduced to us. I am not joking when I say this, but I counted 33 named characters. Most of these characters are minor roles in the story and quite irrelevant, and shouldn't have been named in the first place. Who cares about all these parents? Most of them are skimmed past anyway.
There were so many characters and they had so little substance. They are literally one-dimensional. I wouldn't even be able to tell you their personalities, they were like a melting pot. I could only tell you their most defining features. Meet the riveting cast: The girl, The Bad Guy, The one the girl liked, The one with movie star parents, The Poor one, The Abused one, Police woman, Female School worker, The Nerd, The Asian one, Horrid dad #1, and Shepard.
Overloading your reader with information within the first few pages is not the way to go. There were several ways to start this book that would have made it more engaging, but infodumping was Danielle's choice. In fact, this type of narration is continued for the rest of the book. Tell, tell, tell and little show. And sometimes, when she tells, she tells something that was irrelevant to the conversation the characters were having. Please, do tell us the whole backstory of this married couple, it's not as if an investigation is taking place.
Moreover, the book treats the reader as if they are stupid and have the memory of Dory the fish. Information is repeated every few pages as if you hadn't just read it. Several pages could have been cut out if these parts were excluded, perhaps a third or even a half of this book.
Lastly, why on Earth was a romance added to this book at the end? I felt no chemistry between the two characters and it felt a little disgusting to add it in a book with such a serious topic matter. It felt like it was just slapped together at the last minute.
This is not worth the read. I am sure there are books that handle this topic much better than this one. Please consider other novel for your sanity. 2/5 stars.
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Key note: Shepard is named because he has the most horrid lines out of this book towards our female protagonist Vivienne and her unfortunate fate, since he would constantly slut-shame her. Shame. Shame on him.
Other note: The best line in this entire book was, "Lawrence Gray [...] had asked if they would be renaming the school Saint Sodom and Gomorrah" on page 3. I smiled at this as I understood the reference. The book only went downhill from here.
The blurb for this book was promising. However, as I read the book, I realised that the violence made out on the blurb was much different to that in the book. I picked up this book because I assumed the people had gotten into a brutal fight, not that the violence was sexual in nature. As far as I'm aware, there was no trigger warning for this book - and it should have come with one.
The whole incident came out of nowhere, was described very bluntly and then was over as soon as it started. My jaw was agape from shock over what I was reading. This is probably where I should have dropped the book, but I didn't. The aftermath of this wasn't treated to well either, since the author tried to gather sympathy for the rapist.
Let's go back to the beginning. In the first chapter, the majority of the characters were introduced to us. I am not joking when I say this, but I counted 33 named characters. Most of these characters are minor roles in the story and quite irrelevant, and shouldn't have been named in the first place. Who cares about all these parents? Most of them are skimmed past anyway.
There were so many characters and they had so little substance. They are literally one-dimensional. I wouldn't even be able to tell you their personalities, they were like a melting pot. I could only tell you their most defining features. Meet the riveting cast: The girl, The Bad Guy, The one the girl liked, The one with movie star parents, The Poor one, The Abused one, Police woman, Female School worker, The Nerd, The Asian one, Horrid dad #1, and Shepard.
Overloading your reader with information within the first few pages is not the way to go. There were several ways to start this book that would have made it more engaging, but infodumping was Danielle's choice. In fact, this type of narration is continued for the rest of the book. Tell, tell, tell and little show. And sometimes, when she tells, she tells something that was irrelevant to the conversation the characters were having. Please, do tell us the whole backstory of this married couple, it's not as if an investigation is taking place.
Moreover, the book treats the reader as if they are stupid and have the memory of Dory the fish. Information is repeated every few pages as if you hadn't just read it. Several pages could have been cut out if these parts were excluded, perhaps a third or even a half of this book.
Lastly, why on Earth was a romance added to this book at the end? I felt no chemistry between the two characters and it felt a little disgusting to add it in a book with such a serious topic matter. It felt like it was just slapped together at the last minute.
This is not worth the read. I am sure there are books that handle this topic much better than this one. Please consider other novel for your sanity. 2/5 stars.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Key note: Shepard is named because he has the most horrid lines out of this book towards our female protagonist Vivienne and her unfortunate fate, since he would constantly slut-shame her. Shame. Shame on him.
Other note: The best line in this entire book was, "Lawrence Gray [...] had asked if they would be renaming the school Saint Sodom and Gomorrah" on page 3. I smiled at this as I understood the reference. The book only went downhill from here.