Jellicoe Road

by Melina Marchetta

[Joséphine]

I was unsettled. Death is a major theme, yet somehow I didn't pick up on that when I started reading. Had I known, I probably would not have chosen to read it right then when I did. I was looking for something a little less heavy. Given the five stars I gave it though, clearly I'm glad I read it.

Truth be told, the first half of the book did not seem entirely promising to me. The plot somehow did not convince me at first. In the end, what did it for me and captured my attention was Melina Marchetta's style of writing and the characterization. As the story began to unfold in the second half of the book, I was totally drawn in and disturbed; disturbed in that I couldn't stop reading, even though I could predict quite a bit what was gonna happen next, because Marchetta knew exactly which buttons to push next in my heart as I read on. No wonder "Jellicoe Road" won a couple of literary awards.