Jump by Elisa Carbone

Jump by Elisa Carbone

Received from Around the World Tours

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Jump. That is what P.K. has done. A totally wild, crazy jump from a restrictive life with her family into a life of total adventure—rock-climbing out west with a guy she barely knows. At first, everything’s amazing. Not only are they climbing in awesomely beautiful national parks like Yosemite but they seem awesomely made for one another. P.K. is in heaven. And then the cops show up . . . with an arrest warrant. And P.K. has to decide who to believe: this amazing guy whom she trusts with her life—or the cops, who want her to believe that he may take her life.

What I expected from Jump I'm not quite sure. I've read so many books told in two or more points of view I've come to see some well written books, some good, and some that just ended up confusing me. Which was the boy and which was the girl again? Jump fell into the good category. With names like PK and Critter it took me a bit to remember which was which. PK is a tomboy kind of girl, independent and on her own. She takes crap from no one, and this kind of attitude, I suppose, lands her into trouble. Trouble that makes her parents want to send to her a private boarding school because, I guess, they just can't handle her. However, the longer I spent in PK's mind the I less I could understand just why her parents felt the need to send her away. She seemed adventurous, but a troubled teen? Not really. Her friends didn't choose to go with her when she asked them run away and go climbing together. So bad influences? Hardly. It seemed more to me that PK dressed and acted in ways that her parents had a hard time identifying with, but in no way did PK seem to need to be sent away anywhere.I was confused by this definitely, but for the sake of the story I suppose PK had to have a reason to run away.

The one crazy thing I could see from PK was her need to run away so badly that she takes off with Critter, a boy she just met literally minutes ago, because he's the only one that will go with her on her rock climbing trip. Little does PK know, Critter has just run away from a mental hospital and just so happens to walk into the rock climbing gym right at the moment that she needs a climbing partner. After all she promised her best friend she wouldn't go alone right?

Surprising? Yes. But then, Critter is often surprising. Shocking? Not really, but he seems to think he has shocked me. He clams up, goes to get his sleeping bag, and walks back past me with it like he's going to find his own spot to sleep. I catch his hand on the way by.

"Critter it's not that bad," I tell him.

(...)

He looks at me hopefully. "So you're not totally freaked out?"

I shake my head. "Nope."

He grins. "So... you want to make out?" (pg. 102)

Critter is eccentric, but hardly a bad person. Despite having escaped rather spectacularly from a mental hospital he seems like a regular teenager who meets a girl he thinks is hot. Gets the chance to hang out with her,  and takes it so fast he can't believe other red-blooded males aren't taking PK up on her offer. He seems perfectly fine. Between meeting PK and running off to rock climb Critter seems no more different from any other male I've encountered. I generally enjoyed his point of view. He was just eccentric enough to make me want to know more about his way of thinking, and reading PK's reactions to him was funny, and had me nodding my head in understanding.

The rocks are powerful. I feel them pulling me into their three-hundred-million-years-ago-I-used-to-be-an-ocean-floor presence. I nearly disappear into them, but Dante's chatter yanks me back. New routes to be had. Untouched rock deep in the canyon. Too cold in the winter; now the weather is perfect. His girlfriend is coming to put up a new route with him. All I can think is, Spend the day climbing those amazing rocks, spend the night with a hot girl, what could be better? (pg. 51)

Jump was funny, suspenseful, and enjoyable to read. It was a sweet romantic story about two teens who find each other under the strangest of circumstances. It made me want to rock climb, to see the sights, to be in that car with the apostates, and have a conversation with Critter and PK just to learn more about them. I really enjoyed Jump more then I thought I would, and that is always a pleasant surprise.