I pre-ordered Jupiter Rising for my kindle. I don’t often do that, because I seldom read new books. But this is Gary D. Schmidt, one of our beloved authors. 

It’s a short book. I read it in about two and a half hours. It was over so quickly, I had to think for a bit how I felt about it. 

The book continues the story of the surviving characters of Orbiting Jupiter. After some thought about Jupiter Rising, my conclusion is that this book isn’t necessary. I’m no better or worse for having read it. I’m not happier for Jupiter or Jack than I was at the end of the first book.  

At the end of Orbiting Jupiter, Jack’s parents adopt Jupiter, whose very young parents are both dead. Jupiter’s natural grandparents want nothing to do with her. But now they have changed their minds. They mean to fight for Jupiter, and they are used to getting what they want. 

From the beginning, I didn’t feel the outcome of that fight was really in question. How we got to that outcome was complicated, but felt more contrived than interesting. The event that turned the tide seemed a bit extreme. 

The entire story feels like Schmidt was in a hurry to get through it, or perhaps even as though someone else wrote it while trying to adhere to all of Schmidt’s best devices. There’s drama and pain and heartbreak, but much of it seemed to come out of nowhere. The backstory that led to two teenager-aged boys nearly killing another boy isn’t well-developed, so it comes off as an over-the-top reaction to a relatively minor provocation. 

One thing Schmidt usually does extremely well, seemingly effortlessly, is evoking emotions in his readers rather than telling them how to feel. This story seemed to rely heavily on the reader’s memory of emotions from the previous story, as though it was too much trouble to draw the picture again.

Coach Swieteck is back as a hard-nosed coach, but it’s not convincing this time. We run through Wow, this guy’s a serious jerk to Aww, he’s really just an old softy too quickly for the contrast to take effect. Jack is in eighth grade now, and he lists his classes and teachers and tells us which he gets along with and which he doesn’t. He does badly in school when things aren’t going well, and well when he’s feeling good about the world. But the school device doesn’t work like it does in The Wednesday Wars or The Labors of Hercules Beal. 

I won’t continue to beat this dead horse (speaking of which, the story starts with a dead horse, and I don’t know why). I’m not saying no one should read this book. It isn’t harmful. I am saying I’m glad I didn’t pay full price for the hardcover.