Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Abandoned by her mother on Jellicoe Road when she was eleven, Taylor Markham, now seventeen, is finally being confronted with her past. But as the reluctant leader of her boarding school dorm, there isn't a lot of time for introspection. And while Hannah, the closest adult Taylor has to family, has disappeared, Jonah Griggs, the boy who might be the key to unlocking the secrets for Taylor’s past, is back in town, moody stares and all.

In this absorbing story by Melina Marchetta, nothing is as it seems and every clue leads to more questions as Taylor tries to work out the connection between her mother dumping her; Hannah finding her; Hannah’s sudden departure; a mysterious stranger who once whispered something in her ear; a boy in her dreams; five kids who lived on Jellicoe Road eighteen years ago; and the maddening and magnetic Jonah Griggs, who knows her better than she thinks he does.

If Taylor can put together the pieces of her past, she just might be able to change her future.

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Why I Picked It Up

Jellicoe Road has always been one of my favorite books—since initially reading it years and years ago. I know Melina Marchetta is one of my auto-buy authors. If she writes something, I will read it.

Saving Francesca is also a favorite, and her others have been phenomenal. Something in her work scratches my brain, articulating thoughts at the core of me that I didn't know someone could put into words—which will turn out to be a theme of hers: quiet understanding.

Jellicoe Road is an award-winner, and one of those litmus test books; I know I will probably adore someone if they cite Jellicoe Road as a favorite, regardless of if it's for the same reasons or not. (Books can be beautiful like that.)

The real reason I picked this up again recently is that AI has been scraping my blog and was spitting out all summary info at me on search engines, which was a little weird because I rarely try to cohesively describe the voice or feel of Words Like Silver i.e. one very distinctive part of me. So I gave up, leaned into the moment, and asked it which book it thought best articulated me as a person. What is the most "Grace book" possible? Which character is most like me? (Perks of having 14 years of writing on the Internet, perhaps—lots of possible excavation. I doubt this would be as effective if not. Relevant disclaimer also: AI will never touch my writing and I personally believe it's environmentally bad and built on stolen creative work. So all Words Like Silver writing is AI-free.)

Anyway, it said Jellicoe Road. So obviously, I was overdue.

What It's About

Technically, Jellicoe Road is about the territory wars between three groups of teenagers at a boarding school property in rural Australia. The school contains the usual sent-away kids plus some state wards; the Cadets entail the military guys who basically do a training in the field nearby for a season. And the Townies are the townies.

Nobody really knows how the territory wars started, and the book begins with the graduating seniors yanking Taylor Markham out of bed to tap her as the leader of Jellicoe going into the next year. She'll have to arrange land trades, negotiate, keep the Jellicoe side compliant, etc,.

In reality, the book starts with Taylor's trusted adult confidante Hannah disappearing from campus and leaving Taylor alone. She's left behind an unfinished house she's building by the river and a half-complete manuscript detailing the adventures of four kids orphaned by a car accident nearby. As Taylor pieces together where Hannah is, she gets more than she's bargained for. (Classic description, but true.)

Voice & Tone

One of the aspects that Jellicoe Road does phenomenally well is that it doesn't spoon-feed the reader. (This is one of my favorite qualities in a book: throwing you straight into the action, but genuinely giving you the pieces to put it together without getting overwhelmed. It feels lived-in and natural.) That does mean that some people will take to this style and others won't, but I adore it, especially within young adult.

Which gets me to one reason why AI apparently believes I am Taylor Markham reincarnate: because of her ability to connect seemingly disparate elements in a broader pattern. Her brain and voice aligns with my own in that way. The patterns itch.

“You know what? You didn't do anything wrong. I did. It's this dumb thing I do. I look into things and see more than I'm supposed to.”

Language-wise, there are perhaps other books that make me swoon with ornate or piercing prose. But Jellicoe Road is beautiful for its simplicity and the sheen of ordinary, gripping moments. It's conversational and poignant, with everything that matters simmering under a deceptively simple surface. Each reread excavates a different point, but it all feels alive, like I will never stop deriving value from this book. It's interesting because I actually usually prefer more external books—more showing than telling to make it visceral. But Taylor's world is still cinematic despite its more interior filter. All the "I can see"s and the looser commentary-style description.

The book also excellently grapples with a framed narrative, with other stories embedded in the overall arc. You're unraveling what happened in the car accident at the same time that Taylor's figuring out why everything feels different at Jellicoe all of the sudden with Hannah's disappearance. The territory wars fade into the background as scaffolding that raises the stakes at various times, which still adds intrigue. Add in some abandonment baggage, complicated friendship (and relationship dynamics), and coming-of-age themes and it's golden. You don't know how it will all connect, but it ultimately does, and you're just looking for what goes unsaid and bubbles up at the joints.

This is the book that keeps on giving, years and years later. It's clever and wholly original.

Characters & Relationships

It's funny that AI says I'm like Taylor Markham because I actually shaped the main character of my own book—named Tatum—as a nod to the enduring elegance of this book, which I view as a classic. (It's a Printz award winner, so you could absolutely make the argument that it will be one someday.) According to the engine, it's because of the independent but deeply thoughtful, pattern recognition and connection making, and guarded but craving understanding tendencies. Which, yeah. There's more to dig into because it goes on, but (wink wink) that's where the "guarded" bit comes into play. She is solitary and confident, romantic without veering sentimental, driven by a need to understand the disparate, and deeply suspicious of letting anyone get too close. Very misunderstood. Mmm.

As one of the Jellicoe seniors says within the first few pages, Taylor wasn't a popular choice for being the leader, but she knows Jellicoe better than anybody else there. She was raised and shaped by the place itself. (Enter: my obsession with sense of place.)

Within Jellicoe, Taylor's closest with Raffaela and Ben, two classmates who are close to her without understanding her. Hannah serves as her mentor, but keeps her at a distance. The younger kids try to win her over some, especially the endlessly chatty Jessa, who can't quite get the hint that Taylor wants to be alone to think.

And then we meet the Townies (led by Chaz) and Cadets (led by Jonah), who are a funny and fabulous addition to the cast, woven into the fabric of the territory wars.

Marry Me, Jonah Griggs!

So let's talk about Jonah Griggs. Basically, he is the leader of the Cadets—this quiet, misunderstood, Stoic soldier boy who ran away with Taylor the one and only time she got fed up with Jellicoe years ago and went off to go try to find her mom. They lasted three days in Sydney before Jonah supposedly got freaked and called the school to let them know where they were. Taylor has never forgiven him, and both of them have this invisible thread.

On one hand, they can antagonize each other because they've seen each other in contexts the others know nothing about, and won't hesitate to hint at the bruises. On the other, they have this unspoken connection on a level deeper than words.

They fundamentally get each other in a place where they are constantly misunderstood. They can exist in silence and companionship because they know each other more deeply than anybody else does, and they're absolutely on the same core wavelength. There's just something there, and their relationship is based on a quiet understanding they don't have to dissect to value; they trust each other enough to believe in their similarity without spelling it out for each other. This year, he's just been announced as the leader of the Cadets.

Oh my God. In hindsight (all things in hindsight), me loving Jonah Griggs makes so much sense. Painfully so. It's especially funny because I said I wouldn't date military men (sorry.) But I love him. I love them. I love them together. Yes. Damn. (Also, I read this as a teenager so I mean teenage me found him sexy then—pretend the character aged up as I did and same goes.)

Plot, Pacing, etc,.

Like I said, this book envelops you in a specific world and then you just have to run with it. It can be kind of funny at times when you realize you're in a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the logic of the main external plot but everything to do with the internal—like teens on supposedly opposite ends of the territory wars ending up at a McDonald's at three a.m. together—and it all somehow works in a way befitting reality. Masterful storytelling. Like actual people, the characters ignore the rules when they want to, and you don't realize how much it matters at first.

Because the book tackles so many mysteries though, you're never bored. Moments—like the cat, like the train, like the Brigadier's tent or the Prayer Tree—land with punches and impact. It's, in short, ravishing.

You won't want to reach the end, but when you do, you won't be disappointed by the frankly brilliant packaging in how it all ties together, swells, elevates. This is a book that crescendoes, appealing to both the literary lovers who appreciate all things unfinished, unsaid, bittersweet as well as those who want a satisfying, completed, ful-circle narrative rich with detail and answers. When writing my own book, I aimed for the feeling of the Jellicoe Road finale: no stone going unturned but so much else humming behind them to discover depending on where you are with each reread. The book is an ecosystem of sorts and it only does that so effectively because it trusts the reader to stitch together snippets and make connections the way Taylor does.

Some Paltry Snippets of What I Loved

I have some musings on rereading and how each experience is so different, but I'll try to keep this review as pointed as possible because otherwise I could actually wax poetic forever. I have two copies of the book with me in Hawai'i so I went ahead and marked one up entirely. It's a bit hard, because of the book's specificity, to drag out quotes from the context that speak to its essence but I'll try.

• Obviously, I love Jonah. To my in-real-life detriment.
• I of course have many thoughts on similarities with Taylor but—I get it. For many reasons. There are so many lines that just feel right.
• It's so funny in such a lowkey way built off individual character history. Each joke or moment of levity feels earned, contrasted, and like a core memory.
• The emphasis on small, powerful gestures, kindnesses, and acts of knowing.
• The structure of this book is—from a craft perspective—extraordinarily difficult to pull off, so I'm incredibly impressed every time.
• So many details: the nightgowns, the houses, the townie parents, the Clubhouse nights. Everything.

“'What do you want from me?' he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More.”

“Because people with that much spirit frighten the hell out of me. They make me want to be a better person when I know it's not possible.”

“So we get a karaoke machine. On the first night, the year tens stage a competition, insisting that every member of the House has to be involved, so we clear the year-seven and -eight dorms and wait for our turn. Raffy is on second and does an impressive job of 'I Can''t Live, If Living Means Without You' but then one of the seniors points out to her that she's chosen a dependency song and Raffy spends the whole night neuroticising about it. 'I just worked out that I don't have ambition,' she says while one of the year eights sings tearfully, 'Am I Not Pretty Enough?' I start compiling a list of all the kids I should be recommending to the school counsellor, based on their song choices.”

Overall Thoughts

Jellicoe Road is a hard book to review, even referencing my paperback now scattered full of notes. It's a book that gives the reader credit, that can be read and pulled apart in multiple layers. For that reason and others, it endures for me as a favorite because I always emerge, victorious, with something different. In that way, it's the best kind of book: comfortingly familiar, but always making me look at something differently based on my memories and what I bring to it. Always in conversation.

For sappy, nostalgic reasons, I love it. I want to dog-ear it and mark it up to death and shove it on everyone I know. It does feel very, very special that it is supposedly "my" favorite book too, although I'm still reflecting on what all that says about me and where I land. One note I wrote in a margin says that it's about the comfort and necessity of understanding without words and trusting when you've been given every reason not to, which dovetails nicely with the themes of my reading lately.

And of course, it's vivid and immersive and seemingly effortless. It's—to put it simply—a good yarn. Entertaining, mysterious, and propulsive even in its slowest, gentlest moments. Fundamentally, Jellicoe Road is restrained in its elegance, which is partly why it feels so powerful; the book knows how to throw its weight around and when to lighten up. You know Marchetta could lean into the purple prose, but she doesn't have to in order to be graceful or affecting. I love it so, so, so much. I can't tell whether it's a book that softens me, articulates me, or something else entirely, but it's absolutely a book of my heart that's stayed with me over the years. It's an artifact of Grace.

For fans of:

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan; I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson; Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson; Brittany Cavallaro (voice); Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta; Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver; The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (rogue, but hear me out—for the story-within-story structure.)