A good friend has been telling me to read Melina Marchetta's JELLICOE ROAD pretty much all year. I don't know why I waited so long. This was my favorite book this month, and maybe one of my favorite books ever. 
 Like everyone warned me, the beginning was difficult and confusing and I spent the first 100 pages wondering why anyone would possibly love this book. But I powered through and was rewarded ten times over. This is a brilliant mystery, tightly woven, immaculately plotted. We get not just Taylor's story, but another story too, a tragic one that unfolded years before her time. Both stories are tied up in the Jellicoe Road, the school, and the territory wars that are played between children at the school, the locals in town, and the Cadets who visit during the summers. 
 I can't do this book justice. I just can't. All I can say is I ended up falling in love with Taylor, swooning over Jonah, marveling at Marchetta's ingenuity and plotting, and absolutely bawling my eyes out by the end. I'll have to re-read this sometime soon. Now that I know the end, I want to see all the pieces come together with more clarity. There's a reason this won the Printz, people. If you haven't read it, don't be like me and wait twelve months to pick it up even though someone was swearing by it. Go get a copy now. It is phenomenal and you won't regret it.