The End ~ Jellicoe Road

It all makes sense now!!! I'm going to warn you now, if you ever think you might read this book DO NOT READ THIS. I'm going to totally spoil the book in the next couple hundred of words because that's the only way I can really explain it.

So it all connects now. The story that was being told in between chapters was the story of Taylor's parents when they were at the Jellicoe Road. Hannah is one of the characters in the story and she left because she had to go see Taylor's mom who was on her death bed. Another character that I didn't mention in the last post is called the Brigadier (they rarely refer to him by his name). The Brigadier was a mysterious character for most of the book because Taylor once tried to run away from Jellicoe and the Brigadier got her and brought her back and Taylor was never quite sure why. Well now we know. It's because the Brigadier was another one of the five in the story of Taylor's parents.

The war, Taylor and her friends discovered, was never actually supposed to tear the three groups apart, but rather bring them together. They continued to let the younger kids think what they wanted about the war, but became Taylor and her friends became very good friends with the other Cadets and Townies. This issue was resolved because Taylor finally learned that her parents had been the ones to come up with the territory wars because they had been bored one summer and wanted something to do.

I won't tell you how it ends, but I will say that it was good. I really appreciated the complexity of the connections in this story. Everything Marchetta wrote had a meaning because it all related back to something else and a bigger picture. Nothing in the story was there simply for effect, it was all there to help Taylor learn about her family's history.

There was another quote in this section that I really thought helped provide and view into Taylor's mind. Taylor was talking to Jonah Griggs (a Cadet), "'What do you want from me?' he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More." I think this really shows another one of the weaknesses that Taylor has. Toward the middle of the second half of the book, Taylor started to break down. She didn't understand why Hannah was gone and why her mother hadn't loved her enough to keep her. She was confused about why everyone in her life kept neglecting her. She wanted more. This, I felt, was the turning point in the story when Taylor finally started to learn things. She finally told people what she wanted from them and they did it. She started to learn the connections between Hannah, the Brigadier and her mother and why it was so important that she stay at the Jellicoe Road.

At this point, I can officially say that I would recommend this book. I think that it will definetely help if you have a little bit of prior knowledge of what the book's about because it was confusing at the start. Other than that, I was pleasantly surprised by the story and appreciated that many complexities that were mixed into it.

-Jenna