Jekel Loves Hyde [Hardcover]

Beth Fantaskey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2010

Love and chemistry from the author of Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Product Description
Jill Jekel has always obeyed her parents' rules--especially the one about never opening the mysterious, old box in her father's office. But when her dad is murdered, and her college savings disappear, she's tempted to peek inside, as the contents might be the key to a lucrative chemistry scholarship.

To improve her odds, Jill enlists the help of gorgeous, brooding Tristen Hyde, who has his own dark secrets locked away. As the team of Jekel and Hyde, they recreate experiments based on the classic novel, hoping not only to win a prize, but to save Tristen's sanity. Maybe his life. But Jill's accidental taste of a formula unleashes her darkest nature and compels her to risk everything--even Tristen's love--just for the thrill of being...bad.

---

Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Beth Fantaskey, Author of Jekel Loves Hyde

Dear Amazon Reader,

All my life, I've been pretty much of a rule follower. I swear, it's part of my genetic code. As a kid, I hated being late for school. I get worried if I notice that my car inspection is overdue. And I always recycle, not just because it's good for the environment, but because I'm supposed to, where I live.

(My one small rebellion: I have never returned a library book on time. Usually, I get a letter threatening legal action if I don't bring something back ASAP.)

Meanwhile, I notice that most of my best friends have lawless streaks. I gravitate toward people who refuse to feed parking meters, who sneak out of work in the middle of the day, and who toss their "number 2" plastics in the regular trash without a second thought.

I'm pretty sure I envy their careless approaches to authority.

That's why it was so fun for me to write about Jill Jekel, a "good girl" who drinks a chemical formula that unleashes her wild side. I took a little (twisted?) delight in living vicariously through her as she starts breaking some serious rules. Doing stuff that's way worse than going to school late.

I hope you have fun reading about Jill's out-of-control alter ego, too. And, as always, I want to say thanks to all of the readers who contact me. I love to hear from you, so keep in touch!

Beth

(Photo © Gordon Wenzel)

---

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—This melodramatic romance updates Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story. At the funeral for her murdered father, obedient, studious Jill Jekel is shocked to find herself comforted by a kiss from bad-boy Tristen Hyde. Then, at the encouragement of Jill's chemistry teacher, the two team up to work together on a project that could win Jill a hearty scholarship. Tristen, sure that he is descended from the original Mr. Hyde—a real person on whom Stevenson apparently based his classic novel—is desperate to cure the evil he feels growing inside himself. Believing that Jill's father had been investigating the original Jekel's sinister formula, Tristen manipulates Jill into breaking into her father's study and helping him create a new formula to fight his violent urges. Chapters from both teens' perspectives are narrated in moody, overwrought prose, perhaps as a nod to the gothic novel. Though the author satisfyingly builds and resolves the story's romantic tension, readers are left with key questions unanswered. Why is Jill tempted to drink a formula she knows will unleash evil? Why does the same formula that makes Tristen murderous merely make Jill sexually forward? And is finding love with the boy who drugged Jill's mother and repeatedly controls Jill's actions really a happy ending? Teens who enjoy brooding love stories will not be disappointed; those looking for an independent heroine will need to search elsewhere.—Megan Honig, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1 edition (May 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152063900
• ISBN-13: 978-0152063900
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side and the upcoming Jekel Loves Hyde. I was raised and still live in rural Pennsylvania, a place that features prominently in my books. (There's nothing unusual about getting stuck in Amish buggy "traffic" where I live.)
I've been a burger-slinger at a diner called "Diffy's," a teenage tax collector, a journalist, and now a part-time professor at Susquehanna University. But my most fun job is "YA author," because I get to interact with so many interesting readers.
Thanks for looking me up here on Amazon!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I Tried, But Couldn't, April 21, 2010

By 

K. Montgomery (Columbus, GA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jekel Loves Hyde (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Warning to all ye who love to vote on Amazon reviews, this is going to be the lamest one I've ever written here because I could not finish the book. I received my copy via Amazon Vine, therefore I'm obligated to do a review, which I have no problem with. I haven't been having very good luck with Vine books, though, and this time despite loving Fantaskey's debut novel, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, I was again left feeling listless and bored.

Jekel Loves Hyde has a great premise, being based off the classic the title emulates. I was sold. I love the concept of the original and have enjoyed movies based on it, and I sincerely dug the twist the author uses here. That's really the only expectation I had coming in, that the book might try to emulate that eerie, unrelenting sense of morbid danger the original has. And it does. Jekel Loves Hyde has a great atmosphere, but it soon became apparent to me that a great atmosphere was all it would offer this particular reader. Enough to keep me interested anyway.

I'm a character-driven reader for the most part. I love good worldbuilding, where it feels so effortless, like a cradle for the rest of the book. Once that's firmly established in the back of my mind I want to know the characters. I couldn't get into the ones here. The chapters (most of which are ridiculously short, sometimes not even two full pages hardly) alternate between Jill and Tristan's first point of view tellings. And that's the problem, I think, for me. Each tells the story. There isn't very much showing. Telling gets monotonous and after several chapters (I'm sorry, I forget what page number I stopped at), I just couldn't take it anymore. Also, when we're only ever told how a character feels, it doesn't make for very imaginative or thrilling character development.

Another thing that irked me was the intense foreshadowing - an element that I've seen in other things based on the original. Maybe this just didn't work well in fiction format for me, but in Jekel Loves Hyde, the constant foreshadowing, at the end of almost every chapter, became redundant. When the next chapter turned up yet another point of foreshadowing, I realized I was gritting my teeth a little.

The writing also wasn't up to par with the author's debut work. I'm not sure if this YA novel is targeted at a younger YA set, maybe? But I felt the writing didn't lend itself particularly well to intelligent young readers. I think that goes back to the telling aspect, which you don't need that much of. Give the readers credit, that they will "get" it when the writing shows instead of tells. I felt like I was reading a completely different author.

This was one of my most anticipated books for 2010, and I'm more sorry than I can say to be disappointed to the point of not finishing. As there's plenty more I need to read, the question came down to being miserable reading or taking a chance on the next book in my TBR. You know the answer. Two stars for the fact that I couldn't finish (which I blame myself for in spite of not enjoying), and the concept and atmosphere, which I felt was the only good thing about what I did read.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just an old fashioned love story, March 22, 2010

By 

Travis Ann Sherman (St. Petersburg, Fl United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jekel Loves Hyde (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Plot: A beautiful descendant of Dr. Jekyll falls in love with the evil Mr. Hyde's descendant, who is torn between his love for her and his urge to save her from the monster he fears he is becoming.

Why I picked it up: I enjoyed Fantaskey's JESSICA'S GUIDE TO DATING ON THE DARK SIDE as a fun twist on the vampire thing.

Why I read it: The premise of a female Jekyll and a male Hyde seemed very fresh to me, a clever recasting of the always effective romantic archetypes created so many years ago by Ms. Bronte. Here our sensible Jill Jekel/Jane Eyre, a self described nerdy governess-type, falls in love with the lucious Tristen Hyde and all his dark secrets. Tristen is the only male in this school with the intelligence to see Jill's deep inner beauty and wonder what she looks like without her glasses... He finds out too.

Unfortunately, Fantaskey follows a little too closely on the frock coattails of Robert Louis Stevenson's original Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde for success. When romance rears its ugly head in the science fiction genre, it's seldom a pretty sight, and JEKEL LOVES HYDE is no exception. I wish that Fantaskey had stuck a little closer to dangerous young love and teenage angst and left the secret potions, the evil doctors,the missing ingredients and the traitorous assistants to another time and place. This plot wasn't just twisted; it was tortured too.

Who I Would Give This Book To: Someone who loves a page turner with plenty of romance.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Really wanted to like it, July 30, 2010

By 

J. Prather (IN USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jekel Loves Hyde (Hardcover)

I loved this author's first YA novel. I remember thinking at the time that it was so creative and well written that it stood out among all the other paranormal books currently out there. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that way about this one. The plot just didn't make sense to me in places. Even if you have a story that has sci-fi/fantasy elements, they still have to make some sort of sense and this story just didn't. I had to struggle to complete it, and felt that the author was unable to maintain any sense of tension and drama throughout a book that should have been really creepy. The most dramatic moments in the story ended up feeling overwrought and cliched. The overall tone felt inconsistent and choppy.

I didn't buy these characters at all. They didn't sound like teenagers, didn't act like teenagers and sometimes their actions and motivations were just totally out of left field. Since I wasn't buying the characters, that meant the romance didn't work for me - I was really frustrated with Jill and very annoyed with Tristan throughout most of the novel. The dialogue is not effective, often coming across as stilted, and the extremely short chapters only served to highlight the choppy writing style.

While this one didn't work for me, I have no doubt it will find it's fan base. I am not in this novel's target group, which I think would be young adults age 15 and up. There is some language and sexual situations. Fans of paranormal romance will find things to like here, but if they also are looking for a well plotted, well written story, they will ulitmately be disappointed. Not a recommend.