Jacob's Ladder [Hardcover]

Brian Keaney (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Three friends set out in search of their identities — and a link to their past — in a provocative adventure that builds to a deeply satisfying ending.

Jacob awakens inexplicably in a gray, grim place called Locus, where people his age live in dormitories, wear identical gray uniforms, and eat spongy, tasteless food. Even worse than the dreary conditions is his realization that others have accepted this fate — something Jacob vows not to do. Setting out with two companions on a perilous journey, Jacob slowly unravels the horrifying truth about the people of Locus. As they journey through fear toward hope, they must choose between a past they cannot remember and a future they cannot predict.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–10—This intriguing novel starts like science fiction, but ends as something entirely different. Jacob wakes up in an empty field with no memories other than his name. An unsmiling, uninformative man calling himself Virgil takes him across a river to the dreary, modern city of Locus, where most of the inhabitants are teens about Jacob's age. There he tries to find a way back to his barely remembered home while resisting Locus's standard-issue gray uniforms, tasteless food, and mind-numbing labor clearing fields of stones. He befriends Aysha, a girl who still retains some spark of life, and the two, along with Jacob's roommate, set out across the stone fields in search of the fabled Palace of Remembrance, where everything lost can be returned. While teachers may appreciate the author's allusions to Roman and Celtic mythology, the Bible, the Divine Comedy, and possibly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, teens will be pulled in by the appealing characters and the book's structure. The initial mystery of Locus, the ongoing mystery of the teenagers' pasts, and Jacob's harrowing escape when he is separated from his friends and almost entombed in a cave by a madman make for an engrossing story. An accessible, discussable read, and a good choice for struggling and proficient readers alike.—Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT
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Review

"This novel has an original tone and unusual setting. I applaud the author's seriousness of purpose." -- Philip Pullman

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763630713
• ISBN-13: 978-0763630713
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,093,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars lovely speculative fiction for youth and adults, October 24, 2009

By 

LH (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacob's Ladder (Hardcover)

Very unlike most modern YA which mostly seems to deal with realistic modern settings and dramatic issues like bullying, sexuality, social situations, etc., Jacob's Ladder takes place in a strange out-of-time alternative universe and addresses more subtle existential questions. The prose is wonderfully succinct and evocative, and the story inventive yet calling to mind mythological themes. One of my recent favorites.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Answering the age old question... and not liking the answer., February 17, 2007

By 

R Schmidt (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Jacob's Ladder (Hardcover)

Where do you go when you die? Heaven? Hell? Nowhere? Somewhere?

For Jacob, who wakes up one day in a grassy field with no memories, stained clothes, and a mysterious guide who takes him to a dormitory with other boys who had the same experience, life, or death, is a mystery with no answers. Is it heaven when the food is always the same, there is no joy except for sharing the merest fragments of memories with your roommates, and nobody can answer your questions? Is it hell when you are forced to pick up basketfuls of stones day after day, the penalty for missing a day of stone picking is a visit from ghosts, and you have dreams of despondent parents?

What is certain is that the boundary between dreams and reality is breached. Jacob wants answers and more. In time, all of his roommates will have similar urges, but this is Jacob's trial.

But a trial for what? Jacob's Ladder, by Brian Keaney, has rich possibilities in its plot, but they fall flat. The reader is expected to not need any answers as to what this place is, how one gets there, and how one leaves. There are workers in this place... do they not "move on?" This after-world is a dull and listless place. Given that this characterization is drastically different than 99.9% of other after-world depictions, it requires a modicum of explanation, and that explanation is not forthcoming. Thus, Keaney wets the reader's appetite, but no answers are provided.

Like The Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier, this novel seems incomplete. Jacob receives no clarity about why things are the way they are. Perhaps hell intentionally bypasses these questions.