Day: September 1, 2009

R.I.P. IV

Heather13 Comments

I have decided to join Carl’s R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril IV challenge!  Here’s some challenge info:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

The desire for the thrill that comes with this kind of reading drifts in on the autumn winds. You breathe it in and it takes hold of you, tempting you to late nights, book-in-hand, turning pages and starting at every unknown noise. Something wicked this way comes…

I find that kind of melodramatic fear to be a delicious intoxication, one that makes this time of year an especially enjoying time to be a reader. There is enough bad fear in the world: fear of losing one’s job, fear of the state of the world, fear of failure…the list is endless. It is time to reject that fear, embrace hope, and while doing so embrace the fun kind of fear–the kind that had us sitting around camp fires as children, listening to adults tell us ghost stories. The kind that made you want to stay up past your bed time to peek at the late night scary movie on television.

There are two simple goals to the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge:

1. Have fun reading.
2. Share that fun with others.

As I do each and every year, there are multiple levels of participation that allow you to be a part of R.I.P. IVwithout adding the burden of another commitment to your already busy lives.

I plan to participate at the Peril the Second Level, which is reading two books from any of the above categories.

Ideally, I’d love to read more than two but I have lots of review commitments for these next two months (the challenge only runs through September and October) and other challenges I need to finish before the end of the year.  I plan to choose from the following books:

Can you believe I’ve had all these amazing-sounding books on my TBR shelves for several months (some for YEARS)?!  It makes me sad… I need to get to more TBR books!  Hopefully I’ll get to at least 3 or 4 of these by the end of October.

Thanks to Carl for hosting such a wonderful challenge!  I’m beyond excited to start reading.

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Heather9 Comments
Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta
August 26, 2008
HarperTeen
432 pages
Young Adult Fiction

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.

In this absorbing story by Melina Marchetta, 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.

This book was … different.  I’m not sure how much I can say about Jellicoe Road, considering I was beyond confused for the first half, sort of bored in the middle, and loved the ending.  Weird, huh?  Yeah, I thought it was weird, too.

I honestly am not sure what made Jellicoe Road the recipient of the 2009 Printz Award.  That sounds pretty cold, but I just mean that for me personally, nothing really stuck out about this book far and above other YA books I’ve read and enjoyed.  The beginning was extremely confusing (and at first, I thought it was just me, but the more reviews I read the more I realize that a LOT of readers have felt this way).  So confusing that I had a tough time keeping people (and the groups they “belonged” to) straight.  There were a TON of elements to this book, perhaps too many even, but they definitely made for interesting reading.

Once I got over being completely lost and started to have a grasp of what was going on with the characters, I almost found myself bored with the story.  I think that in the middle of the book there was a little too much down time – there was action, definitely, but it wasn’t anything that made me care about the characters or more interested in their lives.

However, the ending was actually very well done, in my opinion.  Everything really came together seamlessly, and I was very touched by the last few pages of Jellicoe Road.  I liked the fact that all the storylines which I had so much trouble understanding in the beginning suddenly made perfect sense at the end.  I think I would have been happier for them to have made sense all along, but at least I closed the book with a clear picture in my mind. 🙂

I’m sad that Jellicoe Road didn’t do it for me, because I do have high expectations for award-winning books.  It is clear that this book has a lot to say, I guess I just didn’t “get” it.  Perhaps you may enjoy it more than I did?

More reviews –