Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Genre VI

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marchetta, Melina. 2006. JELLICOE ROAD. New York. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061431838.

PLOT SUMMARY
Young Taylor doesn’t know where her father is or why her mother left her at the 7-eleven when she was just a girl but she does know that she has an inexplicable bond with the mysterious woman who lives by the river in the unfinished house. When Hannah goes missing, Taylor sets out to find her as well as her mother. All the while she battles the Townies, Cadets and her fellow students at the Jellicoe school who didn’t want her to be their leader any more than she did. As she takes this physical and emotional journey, Taylor learns what really happened to the five children who became a family the night of the fatal crash on Jellicoe road twenty years ago and how they provided her with a family of her own.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Marchetta has created an engulfing story full of conflict, mystery, friendship, danger and tragedy. Although each of the carefully crafted characters is fully aware of their own dependency on each other, they struggle with understanding that they are each valued by one another as well. The author demonstrates her superior skill in developing both male and female characters that are seamlessly intertwined and curiously connected. Marchetta’s natural, mysterious style provides for an unpredictable, complex and thoroughly enveloping story. Set in rural Australia in two time periods, present day and twenty years in the past, this narrative’s theme is one of loyalty and devotion. The author provides her readers with a realistic feel for the culture of these young Australians with contemporary situations, language and behaviors.

REVIEWS AND AWARDS
Michael L. Printze Award

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: Elegiac passages and a complex structure create a somewhat dense, melancholic narrative with elements of romance, mystery, and realistic fiction.

BOOKLIST: Taylor’s life has unexpected ties to her past, and the continual series of revelations is both the book’s strength and weakness; the melodrama can be trying, but when Marchetta isn’t forcing epiphanies, she has a knack for nuanced characterizations and punchy dialogue. The complexity of the backstory will be offputting to younger readers, but those who stick it out will find rewards in the heartbreaking twists of Marchetta’s saga.

CONNECTIONS
*This novel would provide for good comparisons with S.E. Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS.
*Other books by Melina Marchetta SAVING FRANCESCA and LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI