Customer Reviews

JACKAROO.

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you can make it through the first half of this book, you'll love it. I read about five chapters when I first bought it, get bored, and threw it under the bed to age for a couple of years. When I finally did finish it, it became my second favorite book. Adventure, action, and emotional twists happen in this book, but you have to wade through a deceptively bland beginning to get to it. Read it twice and I promise you'll find stuff in it that fascinates you, even though you swear it wasn't there before.

But, to the book itself - Voight has the most masterful control over her characters of any author I know. Gwen is practical, strong, sharp, and, as someone else says down here, "worth emulating." She does what we all dream of doing - become a hero: Jackaroo, who is something like our Robin Hood, only distinct in his own right. Only she finds out being a hero isn't as easy as she suspected. What I found interesting was the power of a legend, and how people could manipulate it to their purposes, but could never really control it.

This book is a thinking book. The danger it presents is mainly not through action but through concepts. No matter what you're expecting, this book will probably deliever something different, unless you've read Voight before. But give it a chance - when I finally, did, I fell in love with it.

It was only when I reached university and re-read this book that I realized how subtly drawn and complete Voigt's characters were. Where a less observant reader quickly bored of Voigt's dwelling on descriptions of everyday phenomena, I finally noticed what interaction was revealed, and what depth each character portrayal went to. By the book's end I was thoroughly engaged in the characters' lives, perceptions, and feelings, and could only applaud the plot restraint Voigt demonstrated in pacing out and finally finishing this novel. It remains one of my favourites.

In every time, in every place where the people are oppressed by a ruling class, there is a hero of the poor, an outlaw who rides outside the law and is yet its greatest champion. In old England it was Robin Hood. In Spaniard-ruled California it was Zorro. And here, in this unnamed kingdom ruled by a distant King and greedy Lords, it is Jackaroo. Jackaroo is the masked outlaw who rights wrongs, who saves true love, who comes to help the people in their worst times of need. Jackaroo is the name in every story, the hero of every tale. And Jackaroo, as Gwyn, the skeptical Innkeeper's Daughter, finds out, is not what he seems to be.

Nor is anybody, as Gwyn discovers. Not the imperious Lord who winters at the Inn, not the silent servant Burl, not Gwyn's missing uncle Win...and not Gwyn herself. Beneath Jackaroo's mask, she is able to do the things that a law-abiding Kingdom girl would never be allowed--but which Gwyn has always dreamt of: being the savior of her people, actively fighting the Lords' injustice as opposed to passively accepting it, finally free of stifling tradition for the first time in sixteen years. But there is a price paid for the wearing of the mask: the heavy responsibility that comes with being a hero, and the sacrifice of herself that Gwyn must make to become Jackaroo.

Jackaroo and the Kingdom are new but familiar, the feudal society vividly depicted and the characters sharply drawn and believable. Gwyn is strong-willed and far too intelligent for her position, Burl is steadfast and fully as intelligent beneath his slow smile, and Jackaroo--no matter which face he appears in--is the hero of every folktale. Voight's writing is compelling, making "Jackaroo" a page-turner to be read...and re-read...and read yet again.

It's that good.

I had read Jackaroo several years ago--probably 12 or 13 years now--and only remembered the basic story when I read it again with my son. He's a 10-year-old boy, and in the first few chapters, he would ask, "When is it going to get good?"--for a boy his age, it was a rather slow start, but I enjoyed the descriptions, the setting up of the story. But once Gwyn was trapped in Old Megg's house with the lordling, he was hooked and many nights he begged for another chapter. And he didn't even mind that it had a mushy, romantic ending, which is saying a lot.
I loved the characters of Gwyn and Burl--I'm not quite sure what book one of the other reviewers was reading who said the characters were one-dimensional. And what's so bad about a nameless kingdom? It's not as finely drawn as Tolkien's Middle Earth, that's true--but then I wasn't reading it as a fantasy reader. I just like a good story with good characters, and Jackaroo certainly delivers that.
I do agree that both Tad and Gaderian were not much like 10-year-old boys that we see in 20th/21st century America, but that is not where they were living. They were living in a time and place where Gwyn was almost considered an old maid at age 16!
We are going to read On Fortune's Wheel next (the next Kingdom book) but will probably skip Elske because it's too girly. I've read On Fortune's Wheel before, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it as well.

This book, unlike many books written for teenagers, is complex and thought provoking. If you just want action, don't look here. If you want dull, flat, black and white characters, don't look here. If you want to be taken to a different time and place, thrown into the midst of turmoil and drama, and if you want to read about the troubles and determination of one young girl, then this is the book for you.

In Jackaroo, and in Gwyn, I found a hero worth emulating. She is her own person in a land where everyone follows tradition. Cynthia Voight creates a smooth tale that is outside a specific time and place in order to show the growth of a young woman who questions the society in which she lives. It is a tender book about life and growing up and love - love for yourself and love for others. Gwyn has been a hero of mine since I first read this book in junior high some eight-ten years ago, and every time I go home from college, I re-read it several times. And each time I do, I take away a new perspective not only on the book, but on my life as well.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a much stronger told story than Voigt's more experimental Orfe. All the characters get a chance to mature over the course of Jackaroo and enough loose ends are tied up by the conclusion to give the book a satisifying sense of closure while still leaving the Kingdom interesting enough to start off a series of book. I certainly will want to read more of the books in this series! The book would have been even better if Voigt had tightened up the first half of the book where she introduces Gwyn and her motivations for her adventures in the second half of the book.

I've now read all the books in the Kingdom saga, and I must say I enjoyed it very much. The great thing is, all the books are connected, and you can see character traits from previous books in the new characters! Jackaroo is an interestingly deep look at the life of the Innkeeper's daughter, and how her voyage to help people becomes very dangerous. She is a strong and good character, and the supporting characters have depth. I especially liked her relationship with her brother, who seems bratty at first but becomes better, and their servant, who turns out to be more than he appears to be.

Voigt proves herself a gifted storyteller as she weaves this lavish tale of adventure and intrigue. Gwyn is a headstrong girl who will not allow the current of the times to sweep her into an undesired marriage to be subdued. Instead she is proud and strong, and uses these qualities in the most compassionate way possible as her imagination drinks in the stories of Jackaroo. This book is full of surprises and is told passionately. It is so vivid one wonders that this mystical realm of the Kingdom must be real...and Voigt satisfies the reader's thirst with three equally arfully written books.

I read the other reviews complaining about the lack of actionin the book, and have to strongly disagree with them. It's sad thatpeople prefer mindless "action" to finely-crafted characters, engaging plots, vivid settings, and meaningful messages, all of which this book has in full.

These are the reasons that this book is one of my favorites. Voigt has written a classic tale, and the messages contained within this book are applicable not only in the vivid medieval-type setting where Jackaroo takes place, but in our time as well. Gwyn is a genuine heroine, in a way that anybody can be a hero: she knows what is right and makes an effort to bring the rightness about. Burl is a wonderful compliment to Gwyn.

And if you absolutely MUST have your action, there's enough of it towards the end of the book to satisfy anybody. Give this book a try, it's an amazing example of the potentials of the genre.