Reviews for Jumper

The average rating for Jumper based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-22 00:00:00 Robert Stansell I really enjoyed the first two Jumper books by Stephen Gould and so I was a little nervous about the upcoming movie adaptation (as was Gould himself last year). I mean, a bad movie doesn't actually hurt the books, of course, but you don't want something you like dissed by a terrible adaptation. So it was interesting to discover that Gould had gone in an new "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" direction with the latest Jumper book. The movie, as might be expected, changes some of the 'rules' of teleportation and history of the world that Gould had established in the books. In the books, Davy Rice is (probably) the first teleporter in the world and his interactions with the authorities reflect the uncertainy they have coming to grips with his unusual abilities. In the movie, teleporters have been around for centuries and there exists a secret organization dedicated to killing them. Davy is introduced to the new world by another Jumper who has already been fighting back at that organization. So the new book, Jumper: Griffin's Story, inhabits that new world entirely and is the backstory of that new character. There's a certain degree of similarity of Davy and Griffin's stories -- I suppose partly because they're both, essentially, coming of age stories. But it was still a great read and I'm actually excited to see the movie now -- I want to see what Griffin's like after all he went through in the book!

Review # 2 was written on 2008-02-27 00:00:00 Anthony Aloi Griffin is a jumper, he can teleport from one place to another. It's a handy trick, but also a dangerous one. Griffin's family is in hiding from a mysterious cohort of bad guys intent on killing him. I picked this book up based off a recommendation on one of the YA book boards. The recommendation should have come with preface - this is NOT a stand-alone book. You see, way back in the 80's Steven Gould published a book called Jumper: A Novel. It was followed several years later by a sequel, Reflex. I haven't read either of those books. I want to read them now, but it would have been nice to have done so before diving into this book. Griffin's Story assumes you have the background of the first two books and, unlike series such as Harry Potter, it doesn't bother to give any background or even a quick summary of what happened previously. You're just supposed to know or you don't. By the end of the book I was still very unclear on exactly WHO is chasing Griffin, WHY they want to kill jumpers, HOW jumping works and HOW someone is sensitive to a jump or not. Those are a lot of unanswered questions. Beyond that missing background info, this is a pretty good book. It has a good pace, action and the character development is good. One issue I do have that is strictly related to this book is that it doesn't have any sort of resolution. It feels unfinished. In a good book there is definite resolution, one or two questions may remain but the big ones are answered, the characters may step off-stage but the reader at least has a sense of how things will turn out. That's not the case here. Perhaps Gould is setting this up for a sequel but if so I haven't found anything online to suggest it. What I have found is that Griffin's Story was created specifically as a companion to a movie to be released this year. Ahh. Perhaps that answers it. Books created specifically for movies, in my experience, often fall a little short of their non-movie induced bretheren - they're more rushed, less attention is paid to plot, character and cohesiveness. Maybe Griffin's Story is suffering from that. It's a shame too because this was a good story! It had potential - the writing is tight, the premise intrigueing and the characters interesting. The follow through just isn't there, however.