On the Jellicoe Road in Crazy Challenge Connection

Dec 10, 2010 ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: killeen-library-paper, 2013, young-adult, contemporary-fiction, family, friendship, relationships

This took me about 3-to-4 hours to read in total. I started before falling asleep and then I picked it up the next morning and could not put it down until I was finished. Now, that may sound strange when I tell you that I almost didn't finish it after reading the first few chapters. I think I was just too tired to deal with the way it was written. It's sort of a puzzle at first, trying to decipher what was past, what was present, what was dream and what was reality because the author set it up i This took me about 3-to-4 hours to read in total. I started before falling asleep and then I picked it up the next morning and could not put it down until I was finished. Now, that may sound strange when I tell you that I almost didn't finish it after reading the first few chapters. I think I was just too tired to deal with the way it was written. It's sort of a puzzle at first, trying to decipher what was past, what was present, what was dream and what was reality because the author set it up in such a way that everything becomes a slow reveal. I love a good mystery and while this is not a mystery in the traditional sense of "whodunit", it is a very mysterious book, full of hints and teases. However, I found those hints to be very tiresome at first. So, I put the book down for the night and picked it up the next morning, thumbing through to see if I'd like what was to come, looking for answers to some of the questions that wouldn't leave me alone. I skimmed and found myself sucked into the story so that I would skim a little further still, before fully becoming invested. Finally, after much skimming, I went back and started over, reading passages that I'd missed through my first read, until finally I finished the entire book.

I don't normally read books that way but I think the skimming really helped me stick with this book and I am so glad I did. I almost took it back to the library, unfinished! It's a very moving story, though like I said a little confusing at first. I couldn't figure out what this whole Townie vs Cadet vs "Us" thing was. Just stick with it, it'll all make sense as you go along. For better reviews of the actual book, read some others around here because this isn't so much as a review as a telling of how pulled in I was by the book once I gave it a chance.

Let me leave you with the opener, though. One of the most tragic and sucked-me-right-in openers I've ever read.

"My father took one hundred and thirty two minutes to die.

I counted.

It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of kilometres away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, “What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?” and my father said, “Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,” and that was the last thing he ever said.

We heard her almost straight away. In the other car, wedged into ours so deep that you couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. She told us her name was Tate and then she squeezed through the glass and the steel and climbed over her own dead – just to be with Webb and me; to give us her hand so we could clutch it with all our might. And then a kid called Fitz came riding by on a stolen bike and saved our lives.

Someone asked us later, “Didn’t you wonder why no one came across you sooner?”

Did I wonder?

When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they’re some kind of garbage, don’t you know?

Wonder dies."
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Mar 31, 2012 Liz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-recommend, young-adult, ni-rec, 2013-book-list

I don't know quite how to describe this book. It was semi-confusing at first, but since I'd heard others say that before I started, I just took it in stride & didn't worry about being clueless too much. It was beautiful to watch the story unfold & the mystery of the characters & stories come together. This book took me through many emotions - sadness, confusion, excitement, happiness, wonder . . . . The writing style was wonderful, & I felt a deep connection for many of the characters. Although ...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Camilla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook

Wow... This book lived up to all my expectations and then some...

Actually, I find it very hard to write this review because I'm still feeling the extreme emotions that this book inevitably invokes.. I loved the writing and the way the book was structured - the first 50 pages may seem a bit confusing because we are dropped straight into the "action", but it works perfectly.

It's even harder to give any kind of idea of what this book is about - both because it would be difficult to not give away to ...more

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Oct 22, 2016 Sue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, printz-award

I loved this strange story that turned out to be wonderful. It seems like an alternate world where there's a territory war among three factions of teens in Australia, but slowly you realize it's the real world and what's happened to make this situation arise. The cast of broken characters learn about themselves and walk toward healing and unity as as the story unfolds. It alternates between present day and past characters occupying the same space and how the past influences the present. I really ...more

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