🟩 Orbiting Jupiter (2015) Review - Sticking the Landing, Avoiding a Car Crash | Book Waffle

Orbiting Jupiter (2015) written by Gary D. Schmidt

An absolutely heart-wrenching story that didn't stick the landing.

We follow Jack. Generic hippy boy in his middle school years that has been raised by his now crusty anti-Vietnam War activist parents on an organic farm with all the soy and good energies his fat face can handle. But one day, Jack's parents take their savoir complex to the next level by offering to foster a 14-year-old prick-to-be named Joseph. 

As luck would have it, ol' Joseph's got a bit of a rap sheet. These include getting blazed on a unique mixture of amphetamines and ritalin and trying to kill one of his former teachers.

Also he's a baby daddy.

Oof.

Boy's speed running all the bad decisions in life. I don't condone it. But I respect it.

What follows is all the struggles you would expect after inviting a teen edgelord to your local Greenpeace meeting. 

And the result is so damn good.

The conversations Joseph has with his adopted family. The emotional bond between him and his new brother. The story of how he became a father and how that has affected his outlook on life at such a young age. 

FANTASTIC.

It's not told in a complex or even saccharine way. But it's still immensely heartfelt.

I'm a twenty-something man and this thing hit me like a truck. I just about cried at multiple points because the story is so excellent at creating this air of teenage hopelessness and belonging and then seesawing between the two. There were some amazing lines in this novella that allowed it to pack an emotional gut punch well above its "YA lit" weight.

That said, the last quarter or so did begin to lose me. The climax especially felt over-the-top and ridiculous. It tumbled into something more Disney-esque with its absurdity and took me out. I went from getting teary-eyed to cringing. That's never a good sign.

This feeling was cemented when a major graphic scene happens off-screen which is just so Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

It's a shame too. Would have loved a good villain song for the antagonist to sing. Something like a Poor Unfortunate Souls remix. The baddie shows up with a boombox and starts blasting a modernized version with dubstep or lofi beats in the background. There's a market for that type of shit. It's called YouTube Poops.

Yet despite all of that hate, Orbiting Jupiter is a superb piece of teen literature that I heavily recommend. It may have broken it's ankles on the final stretch, but the journey is an emotional one that doesn't waste time with too much fluff. 

ALSO, can I just say that I love the book cover? The OG one that I've included in this post, not the cartoony The Fault in Our Stars art style that newer editions seem to have. That looks like trash, generic YA following trends. Meanwhile back in 2015, the liminal bros were setting the trends with their simplistic design. I remember seeing the original cover plastered up on posters outside the school library and thinking "Damn. That looks like a cool book."

🟩 Rating: 8/10