Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

 

I found Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta at a used bookstore a few years ago. I had heard really great things about it, so I figured the $2.95 was a good investment. It finally made its way to the top of my TBR pile this week. I didn't know anything about it aside from the positive buzz I had heard and the Printz Young Adult Literature medal on its cover. These two factors, however, were enough to set my expectations high. With that in mind, I ended up being very surprised with how I ultimately felt about this book.

The plot of the novel follows two threads. The first is about seventeen-year-old Taylor Markham, a girl with a difficult past. After being abandoned by her mother at a gas station at age eleven, she has been attending a boarding school in Australia. She tried running away at one point to find her mother, but was caught and returned. Ever since, she has stayed at school and became a begrudging leader for her house. Her experiences have made her a tough girl that doesn’t let people get too close, but the other students at the school look up to her and follow her lead. The one person she has grown close to is Hannah, a woman that lives near the school grounds and volunteers as a mentor to students.

In addition to her school responsibilities, she’s also the leader of an underground war game that the school has played against other kids from the town and a military school nearby for many years. The game is rough, violent, and a complete secret from adults. It centers around stealing territory from each other with each group of teens attempting to control the most useful areas.

The other thread that the novel follows is that of a group of kids who lived in the same area as the school somewhere around 20 years ago. Hannah, Taylor’s friend and mentor, is writing a story about this group of friends. She’s writing the story in short bursts and out of order. She lets Taylor read the excerpts from time to time, and her readings tell this secondary story. The group is made up of teenagers Narnie, Tate, Webb, Jude, and Fitz. At first, Taylor believes that their story is a work of fiction, but she soon realizes that Hannah is writing about real people she knew and their relationships and decisions explain a lot about the school and about some elements of her life. 

As the story begins, Hannah mysteriously disappears from her cabin by the school with no explanation. As she is the only trusted adult in Taylor’s life, this frightens her. Despite assurances from school administration that Hannah is fine and will be back eventually, Taylor isn’t so sure. She does not think Hannah would leave her unless something was wrong. She begins looking for clues to her disappearance, which leads her to dig deeper into the story she was writing. However, her examination of Hannah’s writing yields more questions than answers, and she has other responsibilities that keep pulling her away from her investigation. She needs to watch over the younger students in her house at school and maintain the school’s territory in the war game, both of which are difficult and stressful jobs. She also has to deal with her growing feelings for Griggs, a boy from their military school rivals that she has a troubled history with. Eventually, the events of her real life and the lives of the kids from Hannah’s story intersect and reveal information about relationships, family, and secrets that have been hidden for years.

I will be honest – the main emotion I felt while reading this novel was confusion. The structure of the narrative was difficult for me to follow. Taylor’s sections were mostly in chronological order, but sometimes drifted into flashbacks. The sections from Hannah’s writings were completely out of order. Both of these things happening at the same time were difficult for me to process. There were also a lot of character names going on in both threads of the story that were very easy to get mixed up and a lot of details were purposely left out in order to facilitate the mystery of the plot. All of these factors added up to me constantly thinking, “who is this kid again?” and “when is this happening?” I never felt like I knew what was going on.

This frustration definitely impacted my overall experience with the novel. I felt like the characters were being mysterious for no reason at all other than for story purposes and that became annoying. As the plot went on, I also developed the opinion that most of the characters from Hannah’s story were behaving in ways that were either selfish or strange. Everyone was making all the wrong choices and being very cagey about it. This put Taylor in a constant state of agitation and anxiety, and I felt like it just wasn’t necessary. It was one of those situations where a small amount of honesty from a few people would have saved a lot of heartache and cleared everything up a whole lot faster. Maybe I’m getting too old for young adult fiction, because I did not appreciate the drama of it all.

I realize that I am definitely in the minority when it comes to Jellicoe Road. This book has won awards and has a very high rating on Goodreads, so I do recognize that it works for a lot of people. I didn’t completely dislike it, but the writing style and story were not for me. So ultimately, I won’t remember this novel as a favorite, but I’m still happy to have given it a chance. Onto the next read! 

2025 Reading Challenges Tally:

Goodreads Reading Challenge: 4/40

Clear the Shelves 2025: 4