From Elisa Carbone comes a book that will take you to unexpected placesand not just in terms of the rock-climbing. JUMP is a beautifully written, marvelously well researched, and soulful story that is reminiscent of genre-defining books like Stargirl.
Elisa Carbones prose is poetry in motion. The chapters alternate between P.K. and Critters points of view, and the words follow the rhythm of their thoughts and actions: if theyre moving, the words are uncluttered, efficient, one after the other, and if theyre more contemplative, the words meander almost ethereally. Woven between this intricate prose is a confidence in subject detail that is rarely matched in YA lit: its clear that Carbone knows her rock-climbing lingo inside out. The rock-climbing language that P.K. and Critter speak may be unfamiliar to most of us, but its value is, once again, in its rhythm, of putting us right there on that rock face alongside the main characters.
Critter reminds me a lot of Stargirl in Jerry Spinellis classic eponymous novel. Both are people who seem to get the truth about living and this world a little more than the rest of us think we know best. As a result, its fascinating to read about Critter, to see him from both his eyes and P.K.s. Regardless of whether or not you can relate to the characters, the two of them together make for an eye-opening reading experience, and Critters explanations of how the world works in particular should linger on your mind, maybe even become embedded in your own personal philosophy.
The plot I felt was perhaps a little uneven at times, in that it was too easy for me to put the book down and go do something else, because nothing altogether tangible really connects the golden strands of these characters developments together. However, JUMP was still a worthy read, and Ive found passages of the book still turning in my head even now, weeks after I read it. Read this if you, like P.K. and Critter, think youre ready to make that jump into another level of YA lit, one that forces you to reevaluate your life philosophies and priorities.
Elisa Carbones prose is poetry in motion. The chapters alternate between P.K. and Critters points of view, and the words follow the rhythm of their thoughts and actions: if theyre moving, the words are uncluttered, efficient, one after the other, and if theyre more contemplative, the words meander almost ethereally. Woven between this intricate prose is a confidence in subject detail that is rarely matched in YA lit: its clear that Carbone knows her rock-climbing lingo inside out. The rock-climbing language that P.K. and Critter speak may be unfamiliar to most of us, but its value is, once again, in its rhythm, of putting us right there on that rock face alongside the main characters.
Critter reminds me a lot of Stargirl in Jerry Spinellis classic eponymous novel. Both are people who seem to get the truth about living and this world a little more than the rest of us think we know best. As a result, its fascinating to read about Critter, to see him from both his eyes and P.K.s. Regardless of whether or not you can relate to the characters, the two of them together make for an eye-opening reading experience, and Critters explanations of how the world works in particular should linger on your mind, maybe even become embedded in your own personal philosophy.
The plot I felt was perhaps a little uneven at times, in that it was too easy for me to put the book down and go do something else, because nothing altogether tangible really connects the golden strands of these characters developments together. However, JUMP was still a worthy read, and Ive found passages of the book still turning in my head even now, weeks after I read it. Read this if you, like P.K. and Critter, think youre ready to make that jump into another level of YA lit, one that forces you to reevaluate your life philosophies and priorities.
