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anitaofplaybooktag 's review for:

Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois
4.0

This book is clearly fiction, but it draws heavily upon the Amanda Knox case for inspiration. And when I say "inspiration", I mean plot.

It should be stated up front that this book is NOT a suspense book. It's not a mystery. It's not a legal thriller.

It's a book that slowly unveils the psychology of a family in the midst of a crisis. If you like psychological novels where the real action is in the minds of the characters, then this book is one you will embrace. If you are looking for more, I fear you will be disappointed.

After reading Cartwheel, I felt more like I was discovering an author who is going to be a huge talent. First, her vocabulary far exceeds most authors. Her writing is not pretentious, but I did find myself using my Kindle dictionary a LOT, and I feel as though I have a pretty strong vocabulary myself. Second, she reveals her characters in a unique and in depth way. She used a lot of different perspectives, and I liked that as you could see how the crisis was being perceived by each person's eyes. In fact, I would argue that the whole book was about perception . . .and how perception is one's own reality, but that it can be different from actual reality.

If you don't know much about the Amanda Knox case, I feel you'd actually be better off in terms of enjoying this book. If you know a lot about the case, the differences tend to jump out at you . . .and that annoyed me a bit because I think I would have liked the book even more if I wasn't constantly comparing and contrasting the characters to their real life counterparts.

I really, really look forward to reading more from this talented author because I think she has five star talent that may not have been totally revealed in Cartwheel.