I didn't realize that this book was a teen novel until after I'd purchased it. Being a fan of the first two, all I needed to know was that the story was a continuation of the original Jumper and not the movie-book version.
It's my opinion that a good story and strong characters transcend age. Currently, I am reading the Harry Potter novels to my two eldest children (9 and 4) and each of us seems to enjoy them on various levels. This book really shouldn't have hit the shelves. It reads like a first draft with meandering plot and multiple subplots that are both meaningless and boring. In several chapters I found myself skimming pages hoping to find a morsel, a crumb of meaning; but they just weren't there to be found.
Half of the book reads like someone who just found religion tried to squeeze in proselytizing in lieu of coherent and cogent story telling. In this instance, the religion is "Green" Left-Wing Secularism. Mr. Gould's left-leaning voice could be heard rather clearly in the previous books too. However unlike those installments, it's inclusion here is forced, unnatural, and unrelated to the plot in any way; like the author had read some articles about plug-in hybrids, NGO, and The Heritage Foundation and was desperate to include the info in his, otherwise, unrelated story.
My sister-in-law has a friend who manages to fit her trips to Europe into every conversation. It's just as eye-rolling-inducing. Here's an example: the protagonist's father buys a fully plug-in car. This car makes only one appearance, just long enough for the protagonist's friends to bash the local economic foundation, which is the oil industry, and those in the community who immediately profit from its extraction and processing. It felt like foreshadowing, but nothing was ever mentioned again. It was only in there so that the author could preach about the virtues of The Chevy Volt (not mentioned by name) and express his personal feelings about the oil industry and the one percent.
The main character is the most well adjusted "undersocialized" 16 year old shut-in in History. She knows nothing of peer relations other than what she's "seen in movies and read in books," yet she deftly maneuvers through the (in this case) not-so challenging and complex world of high school. Her parents are understandably concerned about her safety and social integration. However, when her 16 year old daughter with virtually no experience interacting with anybody her own age and absolutely no romantic experience goes on her first "real" date, her mother (a therapist for God's sake) reminds her where the condoms are located. Remember, this girl hasn't eleven kissed a boy as far as her mother knows. The referenced conversation about teen sex went something like this, "you're sixteen make your own decisions and don't make bad ones." Fine, if that's the character, that's the character, but it is inconsistent with an earlier scientific conversation where the mother, remember a therapist, warns that children her age believe that they are immortal and cannot be harmed.
Very little of note happens in this book until 78% in (Kindle version). When it does, it's over in a page. In fact, so little happens that Gould summarizes the entire plot in a chapter of needless exposition. The main character actually tells her mother (and the reader) everything that we just read. I don't know if he just needed to fill some pages, or what, but the entire chapter could have been condensed to "so I told her everything that had happened and, this time I didn't leave out anything about Caffeine (one of the quasi-antagonists)."
The editor and publisher should be ashamed of themselves. There is a seed of a story in here and it was their job to encourage Mr. Gould to fully develop it. Instead, it seems that they saw a chance to capitalize on an existing fan base and make some quick cash. Strip all the fluff away and you've got three or four chapters of what could have been an exciting "jumping" off point for a new spinoff series.
Truly, I struggled as to whether I should give this book two stars instead of three. However, for all it's faults, I didn't hate the book. If anything, it was a Twinkie that wetted my apatite for homemade German Chocolate Cake. I think that I'll re-read the first two books now.
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Top reviews from other countries
Moonice
Solide Geschichte, kommt an den ersten Teil aber nicht heran
Reviewed in Germany on August 28, 2017Mr. I. M. Davis
Middling Jumper threequal
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2014
