Jinx [Hardcover]

Margaret Wild (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004

Do not get to know me. Do not ask me out. Do not love me. Be warned! I am Jinx. Jinx doesn't start out as Jinx -- at first she's dull, safe, boring Jen. Jen who always hands her homework in on time, Jen who never stays out late, Jen who can always be counted on. When Jen's first boyfriend dies, she thinks she's unlucky...until her second boyfriend dies too. Jen is Jinx now -- a curse, a promise of bad luck, a girl who's angry and alone, who can't get close to people anymore. Can Jinx find her way back to being Jen again?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Connected poems, ranging in length from three lines to two pages, compellingly tell the story of Jen, a self-proclaimed jinx. Here, Wild (The Very Best of Friends; Our Granny) gently traces the ebb and flow of Jen's observations and changing moods as she weathers the tragic, unrelated deaths of two consecutive boyfriends. The volume also offers an intimate glimpse of those closest to the teen: her parents, who divorced when Jen's sister, Grace, was "born imperfect"; Jen's ill-fated boyfriends, who are haunted by different forms of personal demons; and Jen's best friends, "ruthlessly" honest Ruth, whose "kind eyes" note everything, unselfconscious Connie, a lesbian, and starved-for-attention Serena. Poems from several different perspectives make readers privy to both close-up and distant views of Jen's world as she moves from "good girl" to "slut" ("The word is so juicily sexual / slut/ slot/ slit," she remarks) in the wake of her grief. The protagonist's bouts of anger, grief and self-doubt melt in a ray of hope that emerges unexpectedly from the boy who accidentally killed Jen's second beau. Though it's sometimes necessary to read between the lines (especially when gleaning a sense of her first boyfriend, "Good-time Charlie"), many of the brief narratives precisely capture the spirit of a character, feeling or moment. Together, the poems create something larger: a portrait of a young woman pulling herself out of despair. Ages 14-up. (Aug.)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up-When Jen's boyfriend commits suicide, she is lonely, sad, bewildered, and rebellious. During this bleak period, she starts drinking and having casual sex, but then meets Ben and begins the long journey back to normalcy. After he dies, a classmate calls her "Jinx," and Jen decides the name fits her. Seeking to strike out at Hal, the person responsible for Ben's accident, and not realizing or caring where her angry words fall, Jinx conducts a secret, malicious assault. It is not until she actually meets and becomes friends with Hal that she is able to begin putting aside the hurt and anger that have plagued her since childhood. In confronting and dealing with the family issues that have been a lingering shadow all her life, the teen learns that love and forgiveness are a first step to maturity. This newfound acceptance and understanding of herself, her family, and her friends enables Jinx to want to be Jen again. In a style reminiscent of Mel Glenn's Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? (Dutton, 1996), the story is told in verse form. This technique allows the author to acquaint readers with each character and to weave a powerful story of teen angst. The voices are distinct, and all ring true, giving insight into the parents' lives and concerns as well as those of the teens. While the setting is in Australia, the central theme of family dynamics is so universal that it could be anywhere.
Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers; 1ST edition (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802788300
• ISBN-13: 978-0802788306
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,606,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: JINX, October 7, 2002

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jinx (Hardcover)

JEN >>>dream machine

Charlie loves two things:
me!
and his dream machine.
It was a rusty old bomb
but Charlie and his dad
worked on it for a year.
It's a Mazda RX2 Capella
with a rotary engine,
lowered suspension,
tinted windows,
sports exhaust,
alloy wheels,
and a sound system with
subwoofers and an amp.

You can hear it booming
a mile away.
Mom says it's embarrassing:
"Testosterone on wheels."
Once, she needed a lift--
wore dark glasses
and huddled in the back

in case her friends saw her.

I don't tell her how we cruise
up and down Norton Street
making the coffee drinkers
cringe.

Telling stories in verse goes back to Homer. More recently, there have been sacred texts of major religions, along with the likes of Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ernest Thayer, Clement Clarke Moore, Bob Dylan, and Ani DiFranco. Verse is the genesis of literature. The language of verse is so appealing that the works of these poets has endured for hundreds or thousands of years.

Nevertheless, if there were verse novels when I was a kid, it was a secret to me. It has been in the last dozen years that the genre has really taken off, with exceptional works by Karen Hesse, Mel Glenn, Sonya Sones, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Ron Koertge, and Ann Turner, among others.

Great verse novels are typically filled with wonderful language. I love how the form permits an author to incorporate this language into a sophisticated story while paring the words to a minimum. How each poem in the book can present a complete, unique, little picture. How the form allows authors to present the perspectives of multiple characters in a single book.

Such is the case with JINX, a gem of a verse novel, written by Australian author Margaret Wild. JINX is the name Jen gives herself when her teenage world comes completely unglued. We get to see and hear from Jen, as well as friends, parents, and stepparents, as they all try to find their way.

jen's mom will write

Jen's mom writes advertising copy.
She specializes in white goods:
washing machines, dryers, fridges,
freezers, dishwashers.
She hates these appliances
hulking
in corners,
power-hungry and fractious.
One day, she will have a wood stove,
and she'll write about things that matter--
she will write about birth and death,
about love and the absence of love,
about fathers and children,
about mothers and daughters,
about lovers and friends.
She'll write about the whole goddamn
wonderful, awful business
of loving and being loved.

One of the most intriguing characters of the book is Grace, Jen's sister whose Down's syndrome was detected early enough that her mom had the option of terminating the pregnancy. That Jen's mom chose not to do so was the cause of Jen's father leaving them.

JEN >>>the smartest person

Grace can read and write.
She takes her homework
very seriously.
She borrows my history textbook
determined to read it
from cover to cover.
She can't get beyond
the first paragraph.

"I am stupid!
I am a veggie!"

She wants to be like other teenagers:
experimenting
learning
growing up
understanding
more.

"In some ways," Mom tells her,
"you are the smartest person I know,
and the most loving."

"Hear, hear," I say.
and I mean it.

Grace sniffs,
then smiles
and gives me back my book.

She puts on her favorite video.
She has watchedThe Sound of Music
more than five hundred times,
but she still loves it.

Mom and I know it backward,
every bloody song, every bloody word.
We want to strangle Julie Andrews.

The tale gets dark enough in spots that the publisher is recommending it for Ages 14 and up. But, as you'd expect from the author of OUR GRANNY, there is also a forthrightness and a deep joy to this poetic tale. Amazingly, in a book that can be read in a couple of hours, Ms. Wild deals with all sorts of issues including peer and parental relationships, love, lust, forgiveness, death, and self-image. Shortlisted by the Australian Children's Book Council for Book of the Year for Older Readers, it should gain similar attention here.

And who knows? Maybe if we get enough of these great verse novels into kids' hands, more kids will grow up wanting to investigate the works of Homer, Chaucer, and the other golden oldies.

specimens

Ruthless's father is a geologist,
and ever since she was tiny,
she has collected
rocks and minerals.
She displays her specimens
in cabinets with shallow drawers
so she can handle them easily.
It's becoming a joke among
Ruthless's friends
that she sees them as having
the characteristics of rocks and minerals:
Serena is an opal, fracturing and chipping easily,
Connie is a volcanic bomb,
and Jen is smoky quartz.
Ruthless sees herself as granite
(a common, coarse-grained rock),
but to her friends she is gold.

Richie Partington
...

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, April 25, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jinx (Paperback)

Jinx (formerly Jen) has really bad luck with relationships - to say the least!

Her first boyfriend dies and she gets upset but eventually gets over it. Then her second boyfriend dies and now she is Jinx, not Jen. Her teachers, friends, and her parents all call her Jinx. She says that if you go out with her you will die.

Before she started dating, she was boring old Jen who never stayed out late and always turned her homework in on time. Now she is all alone, boyfriend-less and depressed.

Towards the end of the book we find her trying to find her way back to being Jen, and no longer Jinx.

Written in poetry style, JINX is kind of depressing, even the end of the book. You feel sorry for Jen/Jinx, but at the same time I felt that I couldn't get to know her enough as a character to really care about her. This is a super-fast read, at times interesting, but I wish there had been more to the story.

Reviewed by: Taylor Rector

5.0 out of 5 stars Jinx is a masterpiece., December 17, 2005

By 

Rhiea - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jinx (Paperback)

A completely lifechanging book.
You really grow with the characters.
And if you're not a fan of poetry, you will still love it.
So very sad, though.
I'd cry on one page, get over it, turn to the next page, and then start crying all over again.
Absolutely wonderful, though.
Very touching.