cinderellainrubbershoes:

REVIEW

Title: Jellicoe Road
Author: Melina Marchetta
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Drama
My Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)

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Many pop-literature junkies are getting more vocal about giving up on the stories churned out by most of today’s YA authors. And no wonder—if you’ve noticed how ‘bestseller ideas’ are being downcycled again and again to populate the genre’s shelves, you may even agree with them when they huff, “Oh well, can’t blame the writers; kitsch sells.”

Fortunately, novels like Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road emerge to reassure us that the Young Adult section isn’t in any way heading for an aesthetic holocaust. It’s the kind of book that stands stark against its slew of peers; it’s the kind of book that says, “Just dig in, there’s still a multitude of us here.”

Jellicoe Road follows the story of Taylor Markham, who was abandoned by her mother on the Jellicoe Road when she was eleven. She hasn’t moved on about it six years later, but she tries to swim with life as it surges forward. She takes over their school’s Underground Community in their annual territory against the Townies and Cadets. But Lady Luck has a way of tethering Taylor to the past. Taylor finds out that Jonah Griggs, the boy who betrayed her when she ran away to find her mother three years ago, is the current Cadet leader. Problems and internal issues heap up when her guardian Hannah goes missing, leaving only a story about five kids that Taylor feels a strange connection to. Taylor acknowledges then that only when she is able to properly arrange her past’s puzzle pieces would she only find the key to her present and future.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s any summary that can do justice to Jellicoe Road’s real magic. If anything, the book itself refuses to be boxed by its own blurbs and nondescript excerpts. Marchetta’s storytelling talent is evident in the fact that even if the book is built on the same foundations of a hackneyed YA novel, it manages to morph into something so tastefully refreshing and intricately beautiful. It veers off the kitsch high way, if you get my drift.

Marchetta’s prose flaunts an even blend of insightful and crude. It gets deep and lyrical during Taylor’s introspections; it gets laugh-out-loud funny in the punchy, profanity-peppered dialogues between the main characters. In both sides, Marchetta showcases a kind of writing style that I can only describe as a breath of fresh air from the heaps of YA lit that I’ve previously devoured. Add to that a certain edge that gives off a vibe of magical realism, and I can totally say the book is nothing short of unforgettable.

Onto one of its distinguishing points: Jellicoe Road contains a story within a story. As I’ve heard, the first hundred pages made most readers mistake the book for mind-screw galore, discouraging them to leaf through the next three hundred pages. It’s understandable because the two parts read like very different entities. But as the plot charges along, Marchetta drops clues that glue both stories, filling in the gaps little by little until the two meshed together to form an intricate masterwork. The mystery is not so hard to crack, though. The wham! lines would elicit an “About time you figure it out, Taylor!” instead of an “I didn’t see that coming!” from the thinking audience. Be that as it may, the emphasis given on the anticipation factor was excellent.

Taylor as a character doesn’t stray so much from her antiheroine peers: she’s angst-on-two legs, carries an emotional baggage heavier than herself, snarky, unapologetically selfish, and has lots of trust issues. But akin to all the characters I’ve loved in literature, it isn’t about how unlikable Taylor seems to be—it’s all about how she emerges as a well fleshed-out person from the pages. Her humanness shines the brightest when she tries to be tough but grudgingly acknowledges that she needs other people to hold on to.

Standing alongside her is a ragtag bunch of other memorable characters: Aboriginal Townie leader Chaz Santangelo, the amiable ex-Townie Raffaela, the self-deprecatory muso Ben, and the damaged and stoic Cadet Jonah Griggs. This group as well as the other in the accompanying story are caught up in complicated relationship polygons—enemies, friends, friends-but-not-quite, lovers-that-aren’t—that somehow contributed to their dimensionalities.

Reading about their petty territory disputes was somewhat fascinating, though it made me extra-afraid of the actual territory wars our country is engaged in with Sabah and China. In the book, violence is the punishment for whoever trespasses into enemy terrain. That’s just black eyes and broken bones, but it’s violence just the same. Imagine this system blown up as the people involved fight over international lands. Death tolls, negotiations, pleas? Our newspapers carried headlines about those for weeks.

Anyway (sorry for digressing), since we’re already talking about boundaries and places, I commend Marchetta for her first-class world-building. The weight of the realm she created is as palpable as the lives of the people who inhabit it.

As a whole, I can say that Jellicoe Road is one of those books that deserve an improper fraction—I’d totally give it 6 out of 5 stars if I could! Hands down, this is definitely one of the best books I’ve read.

amandaonwriting:

How to deal with the holidays

cryptofwrestling:

Vintage Topstone Masks catalog page (1960s)

cinderellainrubbershoes:

The Book Thief | Markus Suzak
Aside from the casting news, quote-doodling this novel makes me want to read it again! (Death’s I’m-haunted-by-humans spiel is my favorite). If you haven’t read this literary gem yet, please do. You won’t regret it. :)

all-about-villains:

Gotham Villains : by Ai-eye / Tumblr

(Source: monets)

I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn’t like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn’t be a mother and it was likely you wouldn’t become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed everyday math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of ever being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You’d become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you’d have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.

Carol Rifka Brunt (Tell the Wolves I’m Home) —

cinderellainrubbershoes:

BOOK TRADE? I have extra pre-loved copies of Holly Black’s White Cat and Red Glove and Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Anyone up for a book trade? All are in good condition, though Wind-Up’s pages have yellowed a little (I bought it ten years ago and it’s my second oldest Murakami book). Drop me a message if you’re interested and if you’re willing to meet at SM Manila. :p

cinderellainrubbershoes:

Review: Tell the Wolves I’m Home
Author: Carol Rifka Brunt
Genre: Contemporary,Young Adult, Drama, Historical
My Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 stars) 

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When cupids of literature decide to shoot, there are moments when they don’t stop at the ‘piercing’ stage. Sometimes they linger inside us and use their love arrows to carve a shelf-space in our hearts, whereafter they will gently lodge a special book. They synchronize our heartbeats with the flutters of that novel’s pages. And then they will tether it to all our memory muscles until we realize we will never forget its story no matter how hard we try.

My heart already contains a sizable literary treasure trove. A couple of weeks ago, I added to it a novel that rendered me weak-kneed with awe:  Carol Rifka Brunt’s Tell the Wolves I’m Home.

The title itself is a siren’s call to my ears. It had me thinking, “What exactly are those wolves? Are those your fears? Are those the bad things you’ve run away from but are finally facing because you’re tired of hiding from them? Is this a poetic way of saying you’re giving up?” With these big question marks, I know I just have to read this and find out.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home is set in 1980s America and follows the story of fourteen-year-old June Elbus. Her quirkiness and love of anything medieval made her feel adrift even in her own home, and it is only Finn Weiss—a renowned New York painter and her favorite uncle—who becomes her friendly anchor. But the mooring is severed when Finn dies of an illness largely misunderstood at that time: AIDS. June feels abandoned with her own heartache, not only for having lost her best friend but also because her family’s grief seems to be eclipsed by embarrassment and resentment. After a furtive (and initially hesitant) correspondence with Toby, Finn’s lover, it dawns on her that she has found a kindred, damaged spirit. And maybe if she opens up some more, she’ll realize he’s the very person she needs the most…

This is the kind of book the narrator of 500 Days of Summer truthfully describes: not a love story but a story about love. Some people may raise their eyebrows and ask, “What does a wet-behind-the-ears teenage nerd know about the four-letter-word?” Pick up this book and surprise yourself.

What I like the most about this novel is that the author knew the difference between creating a character because she wants to have a “readable” megaphone and creating a character because she wants to mold a human that can spring from the pages. Brunt’s craft is the latter. She didn’t try to make June her precocious puppet; she made June the way June should be, which is a true child. The prose may be simplistic, but it carries a weight reminiscent of good poetry.  I think that vibe is given off by how June’s words can tug at the heartstrings. She oozes with innocence, but she also has the kind of wisdom only the heartbroken ones could project. I salute Brunt for this wonderful blend! It’s one of those few books that separated themselves from most coming-of-age creations today, those tales with characters that are obviously adults trapped in kids’ bodies.

(I guess everyone can recognize bits of themselves in June. The awkward bits. The clumsy bits. The I-think-I’m-too-weird bits.  The no-one-will-like-me-if-they-won’t-get-anything-from-me bits. The I’m-alone-but-not-really-lonely bits. Practically all those bits that make you want to wish that someone with genuine intention will love you as you are, and let you know.)

The unfurling of Toby and June’s complicated relationship is Wolves’ hub. Both characters have Finn-shaped holes in their universes, and in some peculiar way they manage to fill those holes with pieces of each other… pieces that also materialize Finn in the eyes of the reader. Brunt takes her time in kneading the whole thing in its most realistic form. The sibling rivalry also adds a poignant layer to the tale, although for the first half I thought Greta seems like a “mean girl” caricature that became developed too late in the novel. The parents are not given much character flesh (perhaps due to their portrayal as busy and a tad too inattentive figures), but their presence is palpable when it needs be.

World-building is ace as well. While nostalgia didn’t kick in (I was born in 1991), Brunt makes it so that you can feel the 1980s through her book. From fashion to music, from food to even the fears and boxed mentality of people then…they’re all alive. It’s like bolting through the chromes of the ‘80s.

In all honesty, there’s nothing much to say about the plot. Wolves puts emphasis on the beauty of anticipation instead of the element of surprise. Even its opening sentence tells you that: “My sister Greta and I were having our portrait painted by our Uncle Finn because he knew he was dying.” It’s the first piece of domino the author pushed for you. All you have to do is marvel at how each piece knocks the next one beautifully.

All in all, Tell the Wolves I’m Home successfully managed to pull a perfect Wizard of Oz. It has brains, bursting with meaty morsels of wisdom at the four corners of every page; it has courage, not pulling any punches while it slowly reveals jagged truths about the dichotomy of human nature; and it has a heart—a big, big one—that sings a quiet cradlesong which can make you cry and still fill your chest with so much hope. That and its many flaws made it complete. This is how human a book should be.

Five stars for a stunning read.