Jumping Off Swings

Starred review from August 10, 2009
Absorbing from first page to last, this sensitively written novel explores how a teenager’s crisis rocks her life as well as the lives of others. Ellie wants a boyfriend, but what she gets instead is a series of meaningless hookups, the fourth of which leaves her pregnant. Unable to go to her parents for comfort and guidance, she turns to her best friend, Corinne, and Liz, the compassionate mother of Ellie’s childhood friend, Caleb. While rumors about her condition spread, Ellie has no idea how profoundly her pregnancy and her decision about whether to have the baby affects the baby’s father, Josh, whom she has avoided ever since he abandoned her after their only sexual encounter. Meanwhile, Corinne and Caleb are drawn together by their shared concern for Ellie. Offering four equally sympathetic viewpoints, Knowles (Lessons from a Dead Girl
) eloquently expresses the pain of lost innocence (“Their words made me feel beautiful. Irresistible. Even powerful for that one brief moment before it was over. But I was none of those things. I was nothing”) and the longing to feel loved. Ages 14–up.

August 1, 2009
Gr 9 Up-Ellie has sex with boys who make her feel wanted and beautiful and then never call again. Even seemingly decent Josh, a virgin, leaves right after their tryst and never speaks to her again. It turns out the condom "slipped off" (?) and she gets pregnant. The next nine months are narrated by four charatersEllie, Josh, and their best friends, Corinne and Caleb. Ellie's and Josh's families are filled with stock dysfunctionfrom Ellie's shrill, uptight mother and perfect-on-the-outside home to Josh's washed-up, hard-drinking father and hapless mother. The plot of this novel is tired, but Corinne and Caleb, at least, are mercifully convincing and thoughtful. Each, of course, comes from a stable family. Caleb's single mother is the novel's moral center. The blaring contrast between stable kids from loving families versus lost kids from dysfunctional families oversimplifies a complex subject. Knowles writes fluidly, and though Caleb's and Corinne's scenes shine, Ellie and Josh never engage enough to set "Jumping Off Swings" apart in the genre."Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2009
Grades 9-12 When Josh, 16, has sex with Ellie, it is his first time, and he is thrilled to boast to his mates that he is now elevated from virgin geek to ultrastud. But after Joshs condom falls off, Ellie finds herself pregnant. At first she plans to have an abortion. Then she changes her mind, goes through the pregnancy and painful childbirth, and gives the baby up for adoption. At school the word slut is scratched on her locker, but she does get support from her best friend, Corinne, who calls herself Miss Horny Forever Virgin, even as she has a fun romance with Caleb. Told in the alternating first-person narratives of four high-schoolers over nine months, Knowles novel unveils surprises to the very end about family, friends, love, and sex. The simple words are eloquent about being together and alone at the same time, and because there is no easy resolution, readers, whatever their personal choices and values, will be caught up in the contemporary drama of strength, shame, and heartbreak.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2010
After a "one-time thing" with Josh, Ellie gets pregnant. The story then explores the pregnancy's consequences from the perspectives of Ellie, Josh, and their friends Caleb and Corinne. Despite dull protagonists (there's not much to Ellie beyond her low self-esteem), the book effectively communicates emotional situations and the sobering possible effects of teenage sexuality.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)