On the Jellicoe Road

"I live on the Jellicoe Road. Where trees make canopies overhead and where you can sit at the top of them and see forever."

- Taylor Markham

On the Jellicoe Road (or Jellicoe Road for US/UK readers) is an Australian novel for young adults by Melina Marchetta, author of Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca. It's the story of Taylor Markham, reluctant leader of her dorm houses in the underground battle between the students at Jellicoe School, the nearby Townies, and the Cadets (Sydney boys who come for a six-week training exercise). The closest thing to an adult she has - Hannah - has disappeared, just as Jonah Griggs -- the new leader of the Cadets, and the boy she ran away with a few years ago -- has come back. In between skirmishes and diplomatic fights for territory, she starts uncovering her past, and things take a rapid downturn...

Running parallel is the story Hannah is writing about five kids twenty years earlier. Three of them are survivors of a horrific car accident and become students, one is a Townie, and the other is a Cadet. They meet and become friends, but it isn't long before things get worse, and keep doing so.

"My brother is my God. I can't tell you how decent that kid is."
 * Abusive Parents: Too many.
 * Oh boy. Jonah's father is probably the worst example, but by no means the only one.
 * Played with concerning
 * Adult Fear: Three junior girls get taken hostage. In a camp full of deprived teenage boys. Subverted in that they get protected from the boys, but it's still pretty terrifying.
 * A young boy is so scared for his mother and brother, the victims of violent abuse, that
 * Two young children are left with a child molester.
 * Apathetic Teacher: Most of the teachers at the Jellicoe School are temporary, so they don't have a vested interest in keeping a close eye on things. The students run rings around them.
 * Armor-Piercing Question:
 * Ate His Gun:  killed himself this way.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Taylor and Jonah
 * Big Brother Worship: Jonah, for his little brother.

""I'm going home," [Santangelo] says, ignoring my question. "Count me out."
 * Big Brother Instinct: This and Parents in Distress is why Jonah.
 * Bittersweet Ending
 * Blood On These Hands: While Jonah doesn't actually say the phrase, he does look at his hands and talk about regret.
 * Breaking the Fellowship: After, everything falls apart:
 * Call Back: Taylor's middle name is Lily. Lily is
 * Chekhov's Gun: That tunnel Jessa's always going on about, the one her father used to tell her about? It's just a myth, right?
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: Choi, when captured by the Students, is forced to play chess. To be fair, they only did it because they thought he'd be good at it. (He wasn't.)
 * Griggs stays at Santangelo's house for the holidays. So does Jessa. Not only does she never shut up, Santangelo is half Italian and thus has about a billion relatives (including overbearing old women) staying. Griggs and Santangelo are a minority, and end up bonding just to get out of there.
 * Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You: Jessa's dad
 * Driven to Suicide:  both commit suicide;   were stopped before they did.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: More like earn your Bittersweet Ending.
 * Evil Uncle: Jessa. She also has an Evil Aunt.
 * Face Death With Dignity:  chooses to die this way.
 * Foreshadowing: "Someday, I'll be Mrs Dubose and you'll read to me."
 * Towards the beginning, Taylor reflects on how many screw-ups are in her hall, saying they have three pyromaniacs and it's only a matter of time until they're all burned to death in their beds.
 * Friendship Moment: Jude with the flower seeds.
 * Gilligan Cut: Before breaking into.

Raffy dismisses him with a shrug. "We'll do it on our own, Taylor. Joe Salvatore said he was hopeless under pressure, anyway."

It doesn't take Santangelo long to get the lock open."

"If those cadets come near my Year Sevens again, I will maim them."
 * Harmful to Minors
 * The Heart: Webb was. It's combined with We Were Your Team and Breaking the Fellowship in that
 * Hope Spot: Taylor ends up hoping that Fitz is still alive.
 * I Die Free:
 * In Name Only:
 * Interrupted Suicide: Though Taylor didn't realize it at the time, . She was also the reason   instead of happening immediately. Subverted with , who Taylor had to witness die.   and the rest of the group also may have interrupted   attempt.
 * Ironic Echo: The territory wars started as  and ended as serious rivalry.
 * Living Emotional Crutch: Taylor to Jonah and . Webb to his entire team, especially Fitz. Hannah for Taylor.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father: It's played straight with Taylor, who finds out who her dad is  and her aunt is  . This is played with for Jessa; Taylor (a third party) finds out her father is   late in the story, but its unclear if Jessa connects her dad to.
 * Mama Bear: Tate for Hannah.
 * Trini, a side character, feels this way.

"The book starts with the line: My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted.
 * Tate, when she finds out, goes berserk.
 * Meaningful Echo: A number of them throughout the story. One also combines with Book Ends:

The last chapter has Taylor thinking"

"Chaz: What are you so sad about? We're going to know him for the rest of our lives."
 * Measuring the Marigolds: When Webb and Jude look at a beautiful landscape, Webb sees a beautiful landscape and Jude sees a prospective fighting ground.
 * Military School: It's assumed that's where the Cadets go to school.
 * Mood Whiplash: Taylor references this when she says that she feels like an abusive father, one second a monster, and the next human.
 * Same with Griggs' father- he did occasional nice things in between beating the shit out of his family, and Griggs fears that one day he'll forget about the bad things and start believing that he.
 * Motor Mouth: Jessa never, ever shuts up.
 * Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: The 'band' put together by the three groups consists of two guitarists, a DJ and a violinist. It works. Somehow.
 * Authority Figure Abandonment: Hannah mysteriously leaves at the start of the book, which kicks off the plot.
 * Parents in Distress: To protect his mom (and brother) Jonah.
 * Reality Ensues:
 * Reasonable Authority Figure: Chaz's dad, who is a decent guy and a good cop.
 * Rule of Drama: The two cars containing survive more than two hours after the collision and wait patiently for  to pull all the survivors and the bodies out of both cars ... and then explode spectacularly a mere minute after the last person gets clear.
 * Sanity Slippage: Taylor goes slowly insane over the first half of the book. She gets better, though.
 * Shoot the Messenger: Ben gets his fingers stomped on for being the messenger.
 * Tagalong Kid: Jessa for Taylor. Taylor hates it.
 * Team Mom: Raffy
 * True Companions: There are two circles of close friends, tied by blood. The first is Narnie, Tate, Fitz, Webb and Jude, also known as . The second one is Taylor, Jonah, Raffy and Chaz.
 * True Companions: There are two circles of close friends, tied by blood. The first is Narnie, Tate, Fitz, Webb and Jude, also known as . The second one is Taylor, Jonah, Raffy and Chaz.

"The Cadets are wanna-be soldiers. City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
 * There Are No Therapists: Taylor didn't seem to get any after her childhood, or witnessing  kill himself in front of her. Averted in that it's mentioned several times Jonah went to therapy.
 * Urban Warfare: Inverted.

"Townie: No. That's the beauty of it. They don't actually have to insult. The words Your mother are enough."
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Raffy and Chaz.
 * Wham! Line: "And then he told me to close my eyes. And I think I've been afraid to do just that, ever since."
 * "And I thought I must have killed a fucker of a bird."
 * "He was a prick, but even pricks don't deserve to get smashed over the head with a baseball bat."
 * "Taylor. Jude isn't just a Cadet. "
 * With Friends Like These...: Chaz and Jonah.
 * The World Tree: The Prayer Tree.
 * Your Mom: Played straight and then lampshaded