Orbiting Jupiter ~ Gary D. Schmidt

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt is a YA novel centred around two teen boys. Jack and his parents live on a farm and have fostered Joseph, a boy with a troubled past. Joseph became a father at thirteen and has never met his daughter Jupiter, he’s also spent time in a juvenile facility after attempting to kill a teacher. The farm is a fresh start. What follows is the story of two boys forming a brotherhood and attempting to find Jupiter at any cost.

I picked this short book up at the library because the cover really stood out to me with its bold simplicity. Reading the blurb it sounded cute and a light read. Whilst it was both of those things, the ending hit me a little harder than I was expecting.

Jack is the book’s narrator and being the younger of the two boys has quite a simplistic way of narrating. This provides the book with an elegant simplicity that makes the emotions rawer and the events of the plot much harder hitting. Joseph is a mysterious character, even as he opens up to Jack we don’t know a huge amount about him, his entire existence seems to be around finding Jupiter.

The plot is really effective for the most part, it’s simply a battle against social services to find this baby girl. Near the end, it does get a lot more complicated with Joseph’s father appearing and making things a lot more complicated than I think was needed but ultimately, Joseph’s father is also the catalyst for the ending.

Orbiting Jupiter almost has two endings, the unhappy one and then the epilogue-like chapter which is almost trying to make up for the unhappy ending. It felt a little bit like it was rushed a little bit and took a little bit away from the nice simplistic story.

Overall, I liked the idea just not quite how it ended so I gave it three and three-quarter stars.

C🌙