It’s taken me a very long time to finally pick up Orbiting Jupiter. I bought my copy last year at YALC and was determined to read it straight away as it’s short and heard incredible things about it. That clearly didn’t happen as i’m only just reviewing it now.
I was looking for a quick read to get through before i read Clean by Juno Dawson, so i decided to finally pick up Orbiting Jupiter. Honestly, i had absolutely no clue what this was about. I had an idea that it was contemporary but knew nothing about the story. Considering it was so short i wanted to keep the story a surprise for when i was reading it.
It wasn’t as i imagined at all. The story is based on thirteen year old Joseph who comes in to a foster family, a mother, father and twelve year old Jack. Joseph had a very rough life up until joining his new family, and the story follows on from there.
I really have grown to enjoy stories based on adoptive families and families that are unlike others. It makes the story a little more unique and they really home-in on the family aspects of the stories. Although i would have loved a little more focus on the family, i really thought you got a good idea of the relationship Joseph had with the new people he lived with in the less than 200 pages of story we got.
I adored the charaters and their relationships with each other. Jack and Joseph developed a very wonderful relationship during the novel that was not very ‘brotherly’ which i appreciated. The whole novel displayed an aspect of adoption that wasn’t all ‘family trying to make the child be part of the family’ which definitely was a different twist.
The passion from Joseph regarding his own family situation was very effective. It showed that teenagers and younger people definitely have some kind of emotion and impact on their lives. The writing portrayed nicely how mature some teenagers can be.
Although i didn’t completely connect with the story and i found the whole premise of Josephs life a little strange, and didn’t find it as emotional as some people, i very much enjoyed the writing and the fast pace. The story is written from Jack’s point of view, so it reads a little like middle grade. I really did enjoy this aspect of it.
If you want a quick read and impactful read, i would recommend this without a doubt.
The Little Contemporary Corner 
i thought this sounded p interesting and was eyeing it up at work.
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