Jumping off Swings
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
begged for more. And when she gave it to them, she felt loved. For a
while anyway. So when Josh, an eager virgin with a troubled home life, leads her from a party to the backseat of his van, Ellie follows. But their "one-time thing" is far from perfect: Ellie gets pregnant. Josh reacts with shame and heartbreak, while their confidantes, Caleb and Corinne, deal with their own complex swirl of emotions. No matter what Ellie chooses, all four teenagers will be forced to grow up a little faster as a result. Told alternately from each character’s point of view, this deeply insightful novel explores the aftershocks of the biggest decision of one fragile girl’s life — and the realities of leaving innocence behind.
Casual sex, teenagers, and a broken condom oh my!
Jumping off Swings is told from the alternating viewpoints of Ellie, the baby daddy Josh, and their friends. This was the strongest point of the whole book for me. I can’t think of any other books dealing with teen pregnancy that get you inside the head of so many different characters. I enjoyed reading about Josh and how he dealt with the pregnancy. It was quite fascinating to see the whole experience through his eyes. I am very impressed with how insightful and understanding his character was. When I think of teenage fathers, I think of jerky guys who don’t care about anything, but their next sexual encounter. Josh was not a jerk at all. In fact, he was rather sweet and sensitive.
I have to admit that it took me a while to warm up to Ellie. When I first started reading I thought that she was a skanky and slutty girl with little to no self-respect. The more that I read about Ellie and her home life the more I started to understand her actions. I do wish that her character had been a little more developed. Of all the characters in the book Ellie came across as the least three dimensional to me. I think that the problem here was that some of the thing she did just didn’t make sense to me. For example, when Ellie changes her mind about the abortion. Why exactly did she change her mind? I felt a certain level of disconnect with Ellie throughout most of Jumping off Swings.
I had a similar problem with Cabel and Corinne as well. They were both kind of just around doing their thing. I think that the problem in both of these cases is that, Jumping off Swings was just not long enough. Another 100 pages of so might have added a lot more dimension to some of the characters.
Overall, Jumping off Swings take a unique look at the issue of teen pregnancy. If you are interested in learning more about how teens deals with pregnancy, then you might like Jumping off Swings. It is kind of like all those eating disorder books we see circulating now. The subject matter has been done before and very few books add anything new to the topic. Still, Jumping off Swings redeems itself with the character of Josh.
Posts
August 12, 2009 1:37 PM
Great review! I'm really excited to read this. :)
August 12, 2009 9:19 PM
Hahaha, what a great review. I love it "casual sex and a broken condom."
I have to agree with your last paragraph about the subject matter being done, that's really insightful!
August 13, 2009 2:55 PM
I agree, I read it too and it was just eh for me....good review tho :)
August 14, 2009 12:34 PM
mwhahaha you actually did one!
August 14, 2009 7:57 PM
I've been wanting to read this! It's good to hear that you liked it.
-Briana