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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.
It's difficult to describe books like these. This is one of the books that reminds me the best that contemporaries have to offer - the rawness of the emotions, the complex and flawed characters, the tragedies, the grief, and love in its many forms. I did not expect the kind of emotions I had from this book. It started out very confusing. For one, there's this territory war, which falls into those what the hell? kind of plots. And we have this different storylines which adds to the confusion. But next minute, I'm slowly understanding how these storylines merge and then I'm crying my eyes out. There's something so captivating with the lives on the Jellicoe road and it was written so very good that I have goosebumps every time I put two and two together (there's a lot of instances this happened).
I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE. You just need to get over the confusion at the beginning. Promise, it's all worth it.
🤷🏻‍♀️
-the entire beginning makes absolutely no sense and it’s so hard to get into because of it. maybe i’m just dumb, but the switching from hannah’s story to taylor’s life is not made clear at all about what is happening and even tho i realize that’s the point, it just really annoyed me
-territory wars game thing aspect was horrible and i couldn’t give 2 shits about it. it was also super confusing
-i’m not from australia, so the school system and lingo was just so foreign to me, also leading me to be very very confused
-taylor was annoying. i hate the rude, stoic, tough girl trope with my entire heart
-jonah griggs was not all that he was cracked up to be. i read the reviews of everyone being like “WOW my boyfriend!!! he’s so cute i’m obsessed!!! the feels!!!” and i just didn’t get that. he barely talked he had no personality other than being nice. maybe i missed something?
-too many character names so much happening
-when the ending comes together, it is really satisfying and i ended up enjoying a little bit
-the entire beginning makes absolutely no sense and it’s so hard to get into because of it. maybe i’m just dumb, but the switching from hannah’s story to taylor’s life is not made clear at all about what is happening and even tho i realize that’s the point, it just really annoyed me
-territory wars game thing aspect was horrible and i couldn’t give 2 shits about it. it was also super confusing
-i’m not from australia, so the school system and lingo was just so foreign to me, also leading me to be very very confused
-taylor was annoying. i hate the rude, stoic, tough girl trope with my entire heart
-jonah griggs was not all that he was cracked up to be. i read the reviews of everyone being like “WOW my boyfriend!!! he’s so cute i’m obsessed!!! the feels!!!” and i just didn’t get that. he barely talked he had no personality other than being nice. maybe i missed something?
-too many character names so much happening
-when the ending comes together, it is really satisfying and i ended up enjoying a little bit
I had a very hard time getting into this book. I was very confused at first about what was going on. I couldn't tell if it was fantasy or reality (there is a turf war that seemed almost fantastical to me at the beginning). I think that some of my confusion was intentional by the author in that clarity came for me and the narrator as the book progressed. A different version of a coming of age story and history repeating itself. I appreciated the ending.
i would almost give this four stars except for the rough start.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really enjoyed the story of this book but I did not like the organization. I found it very confusing that it kept flashing back. I also couldn't figure out what time period this was set in. It seemed like an older time period until Google and Dancing With the Stars were mentioned.
I had heard that this book was amazing, and it didn't disappoint.
For the first 150-200 pages, I had no clue what was going on. This is because the book keeps making references to plot points and events that it hasn't explained yet (the hermit, the boy in the tree, Taylor fleeing the school with Jonah years ago). It's not a bad thing, it kept me reading because I desperately wanted an explanation for those remarks! And then when they were explained...wow!
Taylor Markham has a backstory similar to other tragic heroines in other, inferior books. She was abandoned while she was in the bathroom at 7-11 at age 11 by her drug-addicted mother, and soon taken in by a kindly stranger who lives in a nearby town, Jellicoe. Now 17, Taylor attends a Jellicoe boarding school where her classmates are embroiled in some kind of teenage jackassery, a turf war between the boarding school kids, the kids who live in town, and the military school boys who take a yearly camping trip nearby. It's not entirely fun and games, and none of them really know what they are doing or why.
At the same time, Taylor is trying to unfurl her tangled family history, with the help of some classmates, some locals who know more than they are saying, and a mysterious manuscript that her benefactor Hannah, who rescued her from the 7-11 year before, has written. Portions of this manuscript are interspersed with Taylor's story, and it's a similarly tragic tale of a group of kids who because very close friends in Jellicoe years before.
I really liked Taylor's friend/enemy/love interest, Jonah Griggs. He's a the military school kid who Taylor ran off with when she wanted to try to find her mother a few years ago. She has a grudge against him because he called the school to come pick them up, making her fail to reach her goal. But there's more to that story than she knows. Jonah is not the sort of guy I would ever be attracted to in real life, but I kind of loved him. It was a slow burn, too - nothing between them was tacked-on or hasty.
I'm definitely going to read more by Melina Marchetta. This book was really great. Although, I will note that it might be too sophisticated/difficult for many teen readers. Probably most kids under 16 would give up on it.
For the first 150-200 pages, I had no clue what was going on. This is because the book keeps making references to plot points and events that it hasn't explained yet (the hermit, the boy in the tree, Taylor fleeing the school with Jonah years ago). It's not a bad thing, it kept me reading because I desperately wanted an explanation for those remarks! And then when they were explained...wow!
Taylor Markham has a backstory similar to other tragic heroines in other, inferior books. She was abandoned while she was in the bathroom at 7-11 at age 11 by her drug-addicted mother, and soon taken in by a kindly stranger who lives in a nearby town, Jellicoe. Now 17, Taylor attends a Jellicoe boarding school where her classmates are embroiled in some kind of teenage jackassery, a turf war between the boarding school kids, the kids who live in town, and the military school boys who take a yearly camping trip nearby. It's not entirely fun and games, and none of them really know what they are doing or why.
At the same time, Taylor is trying to unfurl her tangled family history, with the help of some classmates, some locals who know more than they are saying, and a mysterious manuscript that her benefactor Hannah, who rescued her from the 7-11 year before, has written. Portions of this manuscript are interspersed with Taylor's story, and it's a similarly tragic tale of a group of kids who because very close friends in Jellicoe years before.
I really liked Taylor's friend/enemy/love interest, Jonah Griggs. He's a the military school kid who Taylor ran off with when she wanted to try to find her mother a few years ago. She has a grudge against him because he called the school to come pick them up, making her fail to reach her goal. But there's more to that story than she knows. Jonah is not the sort of guy I would ever be attracted to in real life, but I kind of loved him. It was a slow burn, too - nothing between them was tacked-on or hasty.
I'm definitely going to read more by Melina Marchetta. This book was really great. Although, I will note that it might be too sophisticated/difficult for many teen readers. Probably most kids under 16 would give up on it.
This might be my favorite book. Ever. Which is surprising, when it started it just felt all disjointed and I was not interested at all in the townie, Cadet, community thing. I knew it was disjointed because the story was something that would unravel, but it just was very confusing to me initially. I did plug through and before long found it interesting. But it really picks up pace about 1/2 way through. There is so much I can say and so many things to talk about on so many different levels. It really resonated with me in several ways. Great book and great writing.
it was an emotional
Roller coaster and I loved every second of it
Roller coaster and I loved every second of it
Maybe it isn't fair to judge this book considering I read the first half late at night. I must have missed something big. Because the book reveals itself slowly, the first have was jumbled and confusing and I really had no idea what was going on and didn't really care but knew this book was supposed to be good and there was something about the language and method of telling the story that kept me going. The experience was exactly like reading Proust, honestly.
This book's mystery and dreamlike quality reminded me of Beautiful Creatures, and the war-like setting kept reminding me of How I Live Now. But unlike those books, I just didn't feel connected to the characters or understand them.
Hard for me to imagine which child I would reccomend this book to. Maybe I need to revisit it when I am wider awake.
This book's mystery and dreamlike quality reminded me of Beautiful Creatures, and the war-like setting kept reminding me of How I Live Now. But unlike those books, I just didn't feel connected to the characters or understand them.
Hard for me to imagine which child I would reccomend this book to. Maybe I need to revisit it when I am wider awake.