On the Jellicoe Road in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 17, 2011 mstan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: for-young-adults-or-children, favourite-ya, australian

For the first 150+ pages or so, I am thinking, What on earth...? This is too difficult for a teenager to figure out.... Then on pg. 208 I start laughing because Santangelo, the resident badass 'Townie', gets all het up:

"Don't you ever touch my car again," Santangelo says with the same fury he had on his face when Jonah Griggs made comments about his mother.

Raffy touches the car with her finger in a very dramatic way.

"You've just made our hit list," he says, getting a hanky out of his pocket and ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: young-adult, coming-of-age

from the NPR poll of great Young Adult fiction ...

2.5 stars

April has been a cruel month for me - of the ten novels I've read so far this month, nine have been disappointing. This book makes ten (out of eleven) disappointing reads this month.

So many five star reviews for this one! I really expected awesome things from this book. But I was completely confused by the whole concept of the boarding school, because it seems like the kids are completely unsupervised. Is this Lord of the Flies? Am I ju from the NPR poll of great Young Adult fiction ...

2.5 stars

April has been a cruel month for me - of the ten novels I've read so far this month, nine have been disappointing. This book makes ten (out of eleven) disappointing reads this month.

So many five star reviews for this one! I really expected awesome things from this book. But I was completely confused by the whole concept of the boarding school, because it seems like the kids are completely unsupervised. Is this Lord of the Flies? Am I just clueless because I grew up in USA suburbia? (probably) Second, I didn't like any of the main characters (I really didn't like Taylor), and that made it difficult for me to care about the actions. Third, I was annoyed at the amount of information that was intentionally withheld from me. And fourth, the concept of an annual territory war was boring and childish.

Here is some scintillating dialogue between Taylor (representing the Jellicoe School), Santangelo (representing the Townies) and Jonah (representing the Cadets):

“You promised us a negotiation about the Club House,” Santangelo says, still eyeing Jonah Griggs, but speaking to me.

“Negotiations are over,” I say flatly.

“You can’t do that.”

“Any which way, we’ve got the Club House and you can’t stop us from getting there,” Jonah Griggs says arrogantly.

“Watch me.”

“If we make a deal over the Club House, it will be profitable for all of us,” Santangelo says.

“Come within an inch of our property…”

“And what?” Jonah Griggs calls over to me.

“Unfortunately the state persists in using our school as a juvie centre when it suits them. We have arsonists.”

“So you’ll burn us down?” he says, feigning fear.

“No, but we will burn down every single building you own on our property. Beginning with the Club House.”

Now I have their attention.

The amount I care: 0%

(Admittedly, later in the book these territory wars are put into proper context and they became less annoying.)

I am always down for romance, so the romance bits appealed to me, but the territory wars were tedious and the "I know something but I'm not telling" mystery bits were grating.

Lots of reviews said that everything would come together in the second half, so I didn't give up. But I never grew to love it.

All the mystery about who was whom was all fairly clear to me early on (much earlier than it becomes clear to Taylor), which made the disjointed, nonlinear story-telling style even more annoying. There was no purpose to it, other than to add a needless layer of faux-mystery. I think this would have been stronger if it had been handed out directly instead of coyly slipping a little bit a little bit a little bit.

...more

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Sep 18, 2018 Lindsey Z rated it it was ok

I am seriously about to give up on YA literature at this point. The writing in this novel was OK but I didn’t care at all about the teenage boarding school turf wars. There were way too many characters to keep straight. The italicized second story woven throughout was confusing at first and then not developed enough. I didn’t have much emotional attachment to the narrator even though a lot of emotional things happen to her. The mystery part was mildly interesting to me but didn’t have much of an ...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Erin (NY) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, ya, read-in-2012

I heard a lot of good things about this book, but when I first started, I had a really hard time getting into it. I just could not get myself to care about territory wars between teenagers in some town in Australia.

But then about 1/2 way through, the actual story picked up. There was a mystery, which gets unveiled to us in layers, and then the writing is so great. So if you can get past the beginning, a pretty enjoyable read.

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