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Book Review of Jellicoe Road

Jellicoe Road
Jellicoe Road
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genre: Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
skywriter319 avatar reviewed on + 784 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Everyone wants to discover life-changing things, whether they come in the form of events, people, paintings, or books. If youre lucky, you will experience these encounters more than once.

I was lucky. I read JELLICOE ROAD. This extraordinary book changed my life, and maybe it will change yours, too.

To tell the truth, JELLICOE ROAD kind of ruins you temporarily for all other books. For several days after I finished this book, I wandered around in a daze. I picked up books, halfheartedly read the first few pages, then put them down and wandered away. Nothing seemed to match the magical dream-come-true that was genius author Melina Marchettas third novel.

It starts out confusingly. Whats going on? Why is there so much tension between all these people? Who are they, anyway? What do they want? Why are they so serious about their situation? But then, invariably, youll get sucked in. Its probably a little like how the average person might fall in love: you cant pinpoint exactly when someone became special to you, all you can say is that it happened, and you cant even remember back to a time when they werent special to you.

The narration and plot progression of the book reads like a dream: choppy and distracted in a whimsical manner. Dont expect a conventional story arc, or youll probably get really frustrated. Best if you just let it happen as it does.

JELLICOE ROAD reads like someone laughing through tears. I couldnt help but smile as Taylor, Jonah, and the others endeared themselves to me even before I could figure out what was going on between them all, even as their painful discoveries about their tragic pasts tugged at my heartstrings.

A story this magnificent, this heartbreaking, shouldnt have this much hopebut it does. Thats the beauty of this book. Melina Marchetta has written a book that is so much more than a simple story in words: it takes on a life of its own.