It has been a long, long time since I've read a book that I absolutely couldn't put down, a book that made me jump up and down with excitement because I just loved it so darn much.
Jellicoe Road is the book that I have been waiting for.
It's so completely impossible to summarize this story and do it any kind of justice, so I'm just going to give you a list:
- a decades old war between the Townies, Cadets, and students of the Jellicoe School
- an accident from the past that comes back to mean everything in the present
- a girl named Taylor Markham who was abandoned years ago at a 7-11
- a quest to find the mother who left her there
- a beautiful, wonderful, tragic family of friends
- a Prayer Tree, a Club House, and a dorm full of arsonists
- Narnie, Tate, Webb, the Hermit, Jonah Griggs, Santangelo, Rafaella, the Brigadier
- "What do you think would happen if we kissed right here, right now," he asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, grinning.
"I think it would cause a riot."
"Well, you know me," he says, lowering his head toward me. "Causing a riot is what I do best."
Jellicoe Road is pure magic. At this moment, I am regretting almost all of my past positive reviews, because this book is beyond compare. I loved the mystery of the dueling stories, the competition of the Cadet/Townie/Jellicoe war, the complete and utter sincerity of the love stories - past and present.
When I reached the last page, and all of the pieces had finally been put together, I just had to sit back and close my eyes and spend a few last moments savoring the wonder that was the Jellicoe Road.
To me, author Melina Marchetta is a genius and an artist and stories like hers are the reason why I fell in love with reading in the first place.
Posts
Wow, I'm glad you had a great read! I'm puttin this on my TBR!
ReplyDeleteThis book is one of my favorites and I was regretting all of my previous positive reviews too. The last page made me bawl my eyes out. Here's my review if you're interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://librarylurker.blogspot.com/2010/05/jellicoe-road-by-malina-marchetta.html
Great review - I lucked up and my library system has this one so I reserved it. Thanks for reviewing this - I now can't wait to read it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard such fantastic things about this book. Your review was perfect, I'm definitely going to have to pick it up! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI've heard so many good things about this book. I really need to pick this up ASAP. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI know this is an older post, but when I saw it, I knew I had to comment. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED (x50 trillion) this book as well. I didn't even want to read another book for a day or so because I just needed to bask in the greatness of this book.
ReplyDelete