Review Addendum: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

REMINDER:

If you weren't moved by Grad Student's review, let me just say it again- this is a fabulous book.

“If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.” 

“Hold my hand because I might disappear.” 

― Melina Marchetta,  Jellicoe Road via GoodReads

Go read.

Top Ten Tuesday: So This is Love

Today’s TTT hosted by the Broke and the Bookish is dedicated to Book Romances That You Think Would Make It In The Real World (aka outside the book). Here at YAF & WS we are suckers for romance, but stand firm against insta-love and teenage angst. In the words of the awesome Maggie Stiefvater, who makes some of the best couples out there: “Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Grace's relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you won't settle for less.”  

We think these couples would make the cut.

Crazy Camper

• Lissa and Christian from Vampire Academy. (Crazy Camper is on a BINGE- GS) Reviews coming soon.
• Sookie and Eric (NOTE NOT BILL) from Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series. Pretty much because brainwashed Eric was the cutest thing ever. (And Sookie deserves a good guy- GS)
• Alanna and George- The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. Remember when my college friend and I were making analogies to her new relationship and the Alanna/George/Jonathon love triangle? Well, she and he were Alanna and George, and it is working! 

Grad Student

• Taylor Markham and Jonah Griggs from Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.  This story and their romance is breathtakingly realistic.
• Cole and Isabel from Forever the last of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver Trilogy. If you don’t swoon over those two, particularly that last set of voicemails/call, YOUR HEART IS MISSING and you should go out and find it.
• Cinder and Kai from Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Mutual respect is a good thing.

 …and in a better world... (SIGH)

• Humberto and Elisa from Rae Carson’s The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Humberto’s last line. He completely believes in the girl he loves.
• Tuck and Clara  from the Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand. I love them together: “'Your hair smells like wind, did you know that?'  Yep, me and Tucker, smelling each other.” 
• Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace from John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.  Potentially one of the most powerful book relationships ever.

TFIOS-  heart-breaking AND quotable

 Want to know more about these reads? See our reviews of Hallowed by Cynthia Hand, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and Jellicoe Road!

Top Ten Tuesday: Future Favorites

Hello and happy TTT! Hope you all had great long weekends. Goosie Mama and I went to RI, got tans (errrr sunburns), and got our digital readers VERY sandy.  Crazy Camper was off camping and loving nature/rocks/plants, so we have not yet heard of her escapades, but hope they were epic!

On to the TTT, hosted by the awesome The Broke and the Bookish. This week's TT books written in the past ten years you hope people are still reading in the next 30 years was hard, but I am giving it the 'ole college try! This is an abbreviated list: what makes a timeless read (besides critical acclaim)? For example, the critics loved Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, but Goosie Mama found it unappealing (see her hilarious review). 

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. OBVI. I will fall off my chair if this doesn't win a major award.

2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stievfvater. It already feels timeless! (review)

3. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. (my glowing review). I love the lyrical quality of this book.

4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (WHOA adult lit. We have it in us to read "important" fiction). Scary and sparse and gripping

5. The Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson. Cultural phenomenon. Done and done. (The same could be said for Twilight or Hunger Games series). I chose the third of these over 4th of July fireworks last summer. No joke.

6. Never Let Me Go  by Kazuo Ishiguro  (MORE real-deal adult lit! But with some sci-fi and YA love.)

7. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. (my love in review form). YA at its best. I bought a copy after I read it, because I loved it so much and felt like I needed to have it accessible at all times, just in case!

Share your TTT and help us identify classics in the making!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Had a Hard Time Finishing

Hello, Top Ten Tuesday land! Today I am going to opt for the "freebie" TTT.  I could follow the prompt of Top Ten Authors I Would Like to See on a Reality Show. But lets be serious, you can probably guess it would be David Leviathan, Maureen Johnson, and John and Hank Green (I am grandfathering Hank in here). But I basically already watch this show via the Vlogbrothers/Crash Course via YouTube. (SEE the video below. Did you know there was a YA lit prom? Now we all do! dftba!)

So instead I am opting for the "freebie" theme and sharing a list of books I had a TON of trouble finishing. I have wanted to do this for a while, because I want to know if any of these are worth getting back to! So share your wisdom.
   

• Jasper Jones by Craig Gilvey and Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (with beautiful illustrations by Maira Kalman) both won Printz awards. Why can't I get into these books? Is my brain broken?
•  Froi of the Exiles by the awesome Melina Marchetta. I need to pull it together. But it is a slow start, and the book is enormous. I can't hold it with one hand. I find this to be a problem.
• Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller was an instantly classic love story. And the movie stars Meryl Streep! I should love this book!
• Goosie Mama reviewed and liked Hollowland by Amanda Hocking, but I could not get into her book Switched (the first in Trylle Trilogy). I returned it to the library after 50 pages. Trolls? Mehhh....
• AND IN AN EPIC FINALE OF A BOOK THAT DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE FINISHED: Ripple by Mandy Hubbard. I am ashamed of this. It was late, it looked alright--sirens and all--but I   couldn't bring myself to finish it. It is cring-inducing. Do you ever just give up?

1000 + pages of YA

I just picked up two books that I feel like I MUST start reading.... because Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta is 593 pages! Holy reading, Batman! (Froi is the sequel to Finnikin of the Rock, which I recently reviewed). Not to mention Partials by Dan Wells just arrived for my Nook as well. I feel as if I will be hazing myself this week in a race against due dates.  Here goes a week of dystopian and fantasy reading.

  

Good thing today is gorgeous here in NYC- I see some outdoor reading in my future!! What are you reading this week?

Review: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

"Abandoned by her mother on Jellicoe Road when she was eleven, Taylor Markham, now seventeen, is finally being confronted with her past. But as the reluctant leader of her boarding school dorm, there isn't alot of time for introspection. And while Hannah, the closest adult Taylor has to family, has disappeared, Jonah Griggs is back in town, moody stares and all. Nothing is as it seems and every clue leads to morequestions as Taylor tries to work out the connection between her mother dumping her, Hannah finding her then and her sudden departure now, a mysterious stranger who once whispered something in her ear, a boy in her dreams, five kids who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago, and the maddening and magnetic Jonah Griggs, who knows her better than she thinks he does. If Taylor can put together the pieces of her past, she might just be able to change her future." (GoodReads)

THIS BOOK. Amazing. Did you already know that? Probably. But I have just stumbled into the YA world of Melina Marchetta. And it is glorious.

I am not sure I am as much in lust with Griggs as the rest of the YA-reading world (see here). I’m sorry! I don’t mean to let anyone down! He is hunky and all, but he couldn’t compete for my attention with the beautiful story Hannah is writing, and how it intersects with Taylor’s life. Both stories are about friend’s saving each other but also coming to terms with letting go. Cue the tears!

Jellicoe Road snuck up on me. I got on the train, headed home for Easter, and the ending hit me like a ton of bricks. Books don't usually make me cry, usually its things like Legends of the Fall and the Olympics. ButI cried. In public. For the last thirty pages. The writing is gorgeous and the story all comes together in such an intricate and heart breaking way. I didn't want the book to end, and tried to move on to start Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (I clearly travel with multiple library books-- a girl has to be prepared) but my mind was just not ready, and that’s saying something because I was dying to get to Pandemonium. Instead I had to sit and think about Taylor and Narnie and Fitz and Webb and how beautiful Jellico Road must be.

• Originality: 10. Mostly because I know literally nothing about Australia (except that they really don’t drink Fosters there). So this was all new to me. On a more legitimate reason for the 10, these characters feel very real.
• Absurdity: Negative 1,000. Who knew I could buy contemporary fiction this much!?
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 6. Don’t get me wrong, Griggs is dreamy. But he did not steal the top spot on my swoon-worthy chart of YA boys (that chart may or may not exist….yet…)
• Level of Harry Potter-ness.10. Guys, the writing here--it’s incredible. I was on the fence about Marchetta after Finnikin of the Rock, but boy, can she write contemporary fiction. I would throw elbows at MERYL STREEP to get to this book. And I love Meryl—I want to be her daughter and drink wine with her in her house from Its Complicated.

Review: Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

At the age of nine, Finnikin pledges to defend his kingdom of Lumatere alongside Prince Balthazar and Balthazar's cousin, Lucian.  But all safety is shattered during the "five days of the unspeakable," when the royal family is brutally murdered. An impostor seizes the throne, but a curse binds all who remain inside the country's walls  while the rest, who escape, are landless exiles constrained in deadly fever camps.  Fast forward ten years, and  Finnikin answers a summoning to meet Evanjalin who claims Balthazar, the rightful heir to the throne, is alive. Slightly arrogant and very secretive, Evanjalin claims she'll lead Finnikin and his mentor to the prince. Instead, her leadership puts them on a perilous route towards home. Can Lumatere be saved? Can the crown be restored? Evanjalin is not what she seems, and her startling visions of Lumatere will test Finnikin's faith in Evanjalin and his destiny.

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta ran hot and cold for me. Sometimes I was into it, but not consistently.  I would recommend it if you were passing it at the library, but I wouldn't run out and push old ladies down to buy it.  ( I will read the sequel, however, when it comes out).

The third section of the book is a surprisingly serious meditation on hope, broken faith, the sexual vulnerability of women, and female power.  The best part of this book is that it doesn't end with a triumphant battle, but a mediation on life and loss. I found this section moving and thought provoking. 

Originality: 6. This is a pretty basic 'kingdoms at war' plot, with the pre-rec fantasy map. BUT  I found the diplomacy between these nations boring. Snooozzze.

Absurdity:  8. Pretty high, because it is true fantasy: long-lost prince and princesses, prophecies, curses, and magic.

Level of Paranormal Romance:  I don't want to give too much away, but at the end there is a long march (emotional and physical) that Finn undertakes, and it made for a surprisingly swoon-worthy finale--so 6! I was happily surprised.

Level of Harry Potter-ness: a 5 for magical curses and 6 for writing--Marchetta is good, even if I don't totally love the world she built. It is still compelling and well done.

Waiting on Wednesday: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

"Abandoned by her mother on Jellicoe Road when she was eleven, Taylor Markham, now seventeen, is finally being confronted with her past. But as the reluctant leader of her boarding school dorm, there isn't a lot of time for introspection. And while Hannah, the closest adult Taylor has to family, has disappeared, Jonah Griggs is back in town, moody stares and all. Nothing is as it seems and every clue leads to more questions as Taylor tries to work out the connection between her mother dumping her, Hannah finding her then and her sudden departure now, a mysterious stranger who once whispered something in her ear, a boy in her dreams, five kids who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago, and the maddening and magnetic Jonah Griggs, who knows her better than she thinks he does. If Taylor can put together the pieces of her past, she might just be able to change her future." (Good Reads)

I am sooooo late on this one. I don't know why, but I kept seeing Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta and was all, nahhhh not for me. There was no reasoning behind this. Maybe the font? Maybe the because there was no promise of sassy fairy sidekicks (here's to you, Eyes Like Stars!)? Who knows!? But I can no longer resist.

So really, this Waiting on Wednesday hosted by Breaking the Spine is more Jellicoe Road waiting on me to stop being a fool and get involved.  (spurred on by the total dedication to "Jonah Effing Griggs" at The Grown-Up YA and YA Crush). Sold.

And I mean, this comes up when you Google it. Hey girl.