Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

I've run through my stock of banned books this month, so I'm moving on to read a few novels that contain themes that some would consider to be controversial. Books that are ripe for a future banning, if you will. Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt, with it's depiction of a 13-year-old father from an abusive home, definitely fits the bill. This slim little novel promised to be an emotional read, so I dove in expecting to be get sucked into the story.

The novel begins with Jackson Hurd, a sixth grader living in Maine, learning that his family is going to be taking in a foster son with a troubled past. He is told that this young man, named Joseph Brooks, has been to prison for attacking a teacher at his old school while under the influence of drugs. He is also told that this boy, who is only thirteen years old, has a baby daughter whom he has never met.

Despite this troubling news, Jack and his family welcome Joseph into their home with open arms. At first, Joseph is very quiet and standoffish, but eventually he opens up and begins to flourish. However, even though he is turning a corner and starting to straighten out his life, he still longs to see his baby, named Jupiter. When his pain becomes too much to bear, he tells his foster family the story of how he became a parent and begs them to help him meet his daughter. Eventually, they agree to try and help, and this promise sets a chain of events into motion that will change everyone's lives.

There was a lot to like in this novel, and I was completely absorbed in the story right up until the last 20 pages or so. The bond between Joseph and Jack was touching and well developed. I was rooting for them to be okay and to stick together. I also really enjoyed the rural and snowy setting of Maine as the backdrop for the novel. Schmidt's description of the intense cold served to isolate the boys and emphasize Joseph's sadness. Combined with the sparse, simple writing style, Orbiting Jupiter was successful at taking me someplace else for a little while.

However, all of this slow and careful world-building and character development was ultimately thrown away in the last few pages with an utterly nonsensical ending. Instead of arriving at a place of self-knowledge, compromise, and personal growth, as the style of the novel appeared to be building toward, Schmidt opted for emotional manipulation mixed in with things that just didn't make any sense at all. It was an awful way to end the story, and completely ruined the quiet, emotionally complex mood that the dominated the rest of the novel. It felt immature and disingenuous, and made me mad that I had wasted my time getting to it.

So sadly, Orbiting Jupiter just wasn't for me. This was my first novel by Gary Schmidt, and it will probably be my last. The jarring and ridiculous ending was a huge disappointment and was enough to turn me away from exploring his other novels (at least for now). In general, I love a good old-fashioned sad ending, but Orbiting Jupiter was sadness for the sake of sadness. It ultimately lacked in purpose and left me feeling annoyed.