readitsomewhere

I'm not sure there's a person alive that I wouldn't recommend this book to. I will warn that the first 50-100 pages can be a tad bit confusing. There is a book within the book, about characters who aren't in the narrator's life, kids she doesn't know. But you know they must be important to her and to her story. You just don't know how they FIT. SHE doesn't know how they fit. And so it goes, until the end really. Much is revealed as the story goes on, sometimes by other characters, sometimes by circumstance, sometimes by the landscape of the Australian bush that surrounds Jellicoe Road. But don't give up because the first bit seems off because it PAYS off. Taylor Markham is the newly appointed leader of her school's annual turf wars with the neighboring Townies and the nearby visiting Cadet camp. And while that remains the backdrop for the first part of the novel, it is by no means the whole. I wish I could review it in such a way that would make you want to read it, but there's no hope for that. The only thing that could do that is Marchetta's words. My favorite thing about the novel is the way Marchetta turns our view of one particular character. We are introduced to him in the worst of ways, but slowly, and poignantly, his character is revealed. And honestly, I've never loved a character more. So read it.