Jellicoe Road

The world of Young Adult Lit is littered with a lot of garbage, and the sad thing is that most of said garbage manages to be extremely popular. It's therefore often difficult to find good pieces of YA Lit to read, simply because the stuff that's well-known isn't all that good. This is where knowing a librarian can become really helpful. I was fortunate enough to befriend a YA Librarian a few months back, and she suggested I read this book. It won the Printz Award, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm really glad I did! Melina Marchetta has created a powerful story with good characters that, despite some ridiculous teenage drama and antics, manages to be moving and honest.

The novel is about a 17 year-old girl named Taylor Markham who was abandoned by her mother as a little girl and has been raised at a boarding school on Jellicoe Road. Her only mentor is a woman named Hannah who lives near the boarding school, but has mysteriously vanished without a word. Taylor must struggle to work through her own curiosity about her parents while simultaneously trying to maintain friendships in the midst of an annual border war between members of the boarding school and a group of visitors from a military academy is Sydney. All the characters are well-developed and likable, in an idiosyncratic teenager sort of way. The plot is also interesting, as it drifts back and forth between Taylor in the present time and a story that Hannah has been writing about five teenagers in the 80's. These seemingly unrelated stories eventually weave together in a fascinating and enlightening way which is a pleasure to experience for the first time. What I like best about the book, though, are its lessons about loyalty, friendship, and the meaning of family.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to people who generally enjoy the idea of Young Adult Lit, but struggle to find books of depth and quality within the genre. This book has all the feels, as the kids say these days, and thankfully they manage to be authentic and meaningful without resorting to cheap tricks and sentimentality.

Score:8.5/10
Read this book if: You like stories about teenagers and are tired of all the fluffy romance pieces that pervade the genre of YA Lit.
Don't read this book if: You are averse to YA Lit in general, or prefer stories with many complex layers. Though this book is well-written and engaging, it lacks the literary complexity of a true classic.