Jumper

By: Steven Gould

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

What if you could go anywhere in the world, in the blink of an eye? Where would you go? What would you do

Davy can teleport. To survive, Davy must learn to use and control his power in a world that is more violent and complex than he ever imagined. But mere survival is not enough for him. Davy wants to find others like himself, others who can Jump.

©1992 Steven Gould (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"An exceptionally well-organize debut, with thoughtful ideas, a controlled plot, and characters-particularly the young protagonist-portrayed with insight and compassion." ( Kirkus)

"Gould's warm, delightful, and compulsively readable novel dispalys assured storytelling skill." ( Publishers Weekly)

I READ A LOT

I SHRUGGED
The concept of the story is unique. The writing never falls into the boring range. The main character reads a lot and though very young, has a complex vocabulary and seems more mature then his age.
I gave it only three stars, as I did not like the direction the story went or some of the inconsistencies to the characters. Two Thirds of the way into the book, it became a super hero story. I am not a fan of Super Heroes. There was no consequence for jumping. Usually in a book like this, there is a price to pay for the power and the price paid usually adds to the story and how often the character wields his power. The main character jumps willy nilly all the time. In America we do not show people being blown up. The main character's mom leaves her twelve year old boy with an abusive husband. The kid steals a million dollars from the bank with no plans for paying them back. His girlfriend has a problem with him stealing from a bank, but not from Disney World.

I also believe Gould had problems figuring out if he was writing an adult book or a teen book. It read different ways at different times.

All in all it is not a bad book, but I will spend my money on better.

Great Story

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the story line... Kept me interested for the whole book! read it 3 times. Listened to it once.

Entertaining Coming of Age Story

Reminded me of Spiderman. Instead of “Spidy” powers, the hero teleports to fight badies and other do-gooder activities. Also similar to Spiderman, David Rice (aka, the main character) has a bit of a temper which leads to rash actions and sometimes mean spirited pranks on those who provoke him. He is also viewed with suspicion by the authorities who are determined to catch him. And yes, like Spidy, he has girlfriend troubles.

Highly entertaining with action and angst

My teenage son listened to Jumper first and kept telling me "This is so good, this is so good!" I enjoyed every minute of Jumper, from the beginning where Davey discovers and explores his ability to teleport to the end where he uses his talent in attempts to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.

The author does a wonderful job of portraying Davy as a teenager, with the fears, anger and moodiness of a teen. The character makes impulsive, emotional decisions based on his mood, which he later regrets. There's a love story, some political intrigue and lots of action packed twists and turns throughout the book. It was fascinating to listen to Davy experimenting with the limits of his talent.

MacLeod Andrews did an excellent job at portraying the moods of Davy, speeding up the cadence of his narration during the action scenes and putting genuine emotion into Davy's voice when he is upset. I rarely "noticed" his narration- it was never distracting- as I would instantly become absorbed in the story, which is, in my opinion, the sign of a good narrator. MacLeod excels at voicing realistic fear and anger in Davy's voice.

I definitely recommend this book to young adults and adults, and I will definitely listen the Steven Gould's other books in the series.

Ah, to be young and jumping again ...

Seeing the movie first, which diverges from this storyline quite a bit, made me interested to see how the original author treated this subject. The result is an interesting, if sometimes tedious fantasy that resolves around one teen's ability to teleport. I say "fantasy" because there's never any real explanation behind the protagonist's ability to jump, and "teen" because this story seems best suited to adolescent males. While I enjoyed the story, I can only hope that Gould's oddly juvenile characterization of the young jumper was in some way cathartic. Between crying at every relational encounter, lashing-out at obvious bully archetypes, and depicting young love as a series of clingy-stalky-jealous interactions, I couldn't help but wonder whether these we're the author's repressed childhood memories or if he was only 15 when this book was written.