Jellicoe Road - an example of a perfect YA narrative structure?

First off, I loved Jellicoe Road - but I didn't get that feeling until about half way through. It took me a long time to plod through the first half. It was confusing. Ii had to keep backtracking to re-read things and try to straighten it out in my head. If I hadn't heard such good things about it I probably would have put it down. Is it a perfect example of pace and narrative? I don't think so if you have to keep telling yourself it's going to get better and soon the confusion will go away because everyone says it will. I know many people would have given up before I did, but again, I did love it at the end. Just my .02.

Have not read it, but if it is confusing for the first half of it.....then that doesn't sound like it is a perfectly done book. What if all other books were that way? No matter what genre. I would not stick with a book that far if that was the case. IMHO

It's also On the Jellicoe Road in Aus. Other than HP this is my absolute favourite book. The first time I tried to read it I put i down because it confused me but then I tried again and I got all the way through and everything came together amazingly. It is also bloody sad

I can't resist a Jellicoe Road thread. <3 <3 <3 Glad you loved it!

It's my favorite YA novel, hands-down. I am crazy in love with it, as many people here know. But it's hard for me to say it's an example of perfect YA structure, just because its structure is so unique. It's perfect for the unique book that it is. But it'd be almost impossible for another book to mimic it, let alone master it.

As for Jonah, I also wouldn't say he's the ideal love interest -- but he's so perfect for that story and for Taylor. It's that profound, heartbreaking connection the two of them share, and the agony of his past, and how he's big and stoic and sort of scary but then occasionally cracks & lets the light come out. I adored him. But definitely not the ideal boy for every girl!

As for those notorious early chapters, Melina alluded to them in her Printz acceptance speech, & mentioned that people "trusted the writing". That's exactly how I felt the first time I read JR: "I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm loving it anyway."

Here's an interview I did with Melina a while back:
http://www.yahighway.com/2009/10/interview-with-melina-marchetta-printz.html
She actually said Louis Sachar's HOLES helped her devise JR's structure. So awesome.

On the jellicoe Road is my fave YA (possibly fave book ever). I am in awe of it.

I love it for the beautiful, haunting, chaotic mess that it is.

But agreeing with ADK. If there's one thing I wish was different about it - it's the beginning. Beautifully written, layered start, BUT oh-so-hard to figure out all the connections. My first time through I was confused. But, boy, does persevering pay off!

There's just a lot going on. And I guess the reader is only piecing things together at the same time as Taylor - but at least Taylor understands who Hannah is from the outset (as in, an adult who half brought her up - I took a while to figure that out), and a bit about what is going on with the townies and the cadet and the turf wars.

But, whoah, Melina packs so much into the novel. It really is mind-blowingly awesome and moving and just crazy-haunting-good. I think everyone should read it - but you need to be prepared to settle in for a few chapters and not give up.

Oh, and Griggs. I think he just felt real. And not in a cliched, angsty boy with a mystery past. The truth about him and Taylor on the train station just rips you apart. I think he's a fully realised character. He's pretty funny, but dark and tough and his reactions never feel contrived.

I have to say, the confusion I felt during the first few chapters was more exhilarating than frustrating. I knew it was going somewhere epic, and I couldn't stop reading. If anything, the depth of the mystery forced me to slow down and appreciate the writing even more.

It was actually a really welcome thing, as I'd been rushing through book after book trying to catch up (as if). Jellicoe reminded me that when you come across a really great one, you need to savor it. (Otherwise known as the "don't swallow dark chocolate whole" rule.)

This structure works' cos I think that's how my mind worked as a teenager: fumbling through blossoming feelings and only being able to see through the clumsy limbo of emotion until I found my feet, if that makes sense?

Click to expand...

Trixie, that makes total sense and was really well-put.

Jellicoe Road is SO beautiful -- I agree with wandergirl that the structure of the book is unique and probably isn't going to work out for any other book. But I just had to chime in and say how much I love this book.

It's about as close to YA perfection as I think you can get

I had to put my two cents in because I also adore this book! Yes, the beginning was a bit confusing and frustrating, but then everything clicks and it makes it all the more amazing. This is one of those books you finish and think, Gosh I wish I wrote that (another one is
Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere). So well done, and you wonder where the ideas came from...

This thread is three years old! But anyways.

It's also one of my favorite books. It didn't take me very long to figure out what was going on, and I liked that there is some ambiguity and mystery for a bit. That said, lots of people found it utterly baffling and didn't finish it, so I don't think you could call it a perfect narrative structure. It's a gorgeous book, though.

My guess is a majority of readers (YA and adult both) prefer a straightforward read--here is the protagonist, here are her problems, here is a mildly surprising development such as she finds out she has superpowers or that all the adults have been lying to her and ruining everything, here is just enough personal growth to solve the problems immediately confronting her, and here's a cliffhanger for the sequel.

I enjoy books like that, but I also enjoy mysterious plots, egregious abuse of the narrative timeline, metafictional shenanigans, and unreliable narrators (except for Gen/Eugenides, I hate that guy).

Damn, I have a whole set of Melina Marchetta books on my to-read list but I'm actually going to bump Jellicoe to the top of my to-buy list and give it a read as soon as my stack of books that are actually at home with me are done. If so many of you guys like it, I'd be shocked if it didn't live up to it's rep!

Sigh, okay, I did one of those "look inside" things before I bought this off amazon a while back and the first few pages they had up seemed.... well, awful.
But seeing as it's warranted its own thread I guess I'll buy it. Be warned, I may resurrect this thread when it's long gone jus to give my opinion.

I think I am the only person who really, really did not like this book. I don't want to poop in your punchbowl, but I did write a review of the book, and these are my issues:

The first is that the book begins so confusingly. Yes, there is pay off for the obscurantist beginning, but it was far from the most engaging way to begin the book.The flashback storyline that starts in the prologue is told in a (possibly deliberately) confusing and difficult to follow way. However, I did unravel the book's mystery about halfway though, long before Taylor, the protagonist, ever did, and she had a lot more information than I did. Made me wonder why a character depicted as so sharp was so dense when it came to this matter. Marchetta gives her selective amnesia about her past, but I found that rather ham handed and contrived.

My main issue with the book, then, was all the secrets. Why not level with Taylor about her family? Why keep the kid in the dark about who her father is and how he died, who her aunt is, just exactly what her mother is up to, and who the Brigadier is? She was obviously tormented by the mystery, but instead of telling her, her beloved Hannah just disappears, nary a word. Her mother had also abandoned her, and no one tells her anything. These adults, who we are to believe love her and each other so much, lie to her for years through omission despite her burning need to know, so deep that she ran away to try to get some answers when she was 14. None were forthcoming even after she pulled that stunt. Do people really treat children they love this way? And to what end? She knows that everyone around her has more information than she does, and they just dole it out in little dribbles, surely a technique that it meant to serve the plot more than it is to serve as realistic character development. It made me think all the adults in the book were huge assholes, frankly. It's Star Wars-itis, or maybe Wizard of Oz-itis. Lie to the kid for no good reason and still be considered a beloved authority figure. I despise this trope in young adult lit.

I felt like, in the end, Marchetta created and perpetuated a mystery for the sake of a big, dramatic reveal-- and it was, and it was moving, but as I often find with YA lit and movies, the adults behave badly, keep secrets for no good reason, all for the sake of the author's darling, the big cathartic ending. At least Jonah Griggs has the decency to hate Hannah for her deceit.

I could also mention that every single childhood trauma imaginable is thrown into this plot (dead, unknown parents; absent guardian; child molestation; kiddie porn; child abuse; patricide; cat drowning; child abandonment; teen suicide; a child witnessing a suicide; a huge fire; a junkie prostitute mother... etc) Yeah.

But what do I know?

I warned you guys I'd resurrect this thread. I was so underwhelmed. For starters I don't get why you'd ever have the sympathetic sidekick character use a racial slur about the boy she supposedly liked and not expect the reader to hope everything goes horribly wrong for them all. Other than that it had a slow start, was all blindingly obvious plotting and the story ultimately only relied on the characters being a bunch of liars.

Very underwhelmed. Lovely epilogue though.