Review: Jump by Sean Williams

There was quite a bit of pre-release debate about Jump (published as Twinmaker outside of Australia,) over on goodreads, during the past few months. Oddly, it was some of the more negative, or perhaps judgemental, comments that really make me sit up and think that Jump may be a book well worth reading. Why? Because people were slamming it? Hell no. Because this one obviously wasn't a strictly by-the-numbers piece of YA fiction. It seemed that at least one or two readers had been shaken out of their reading comfort zone. I liked the idea of that. I liked the idea that, quite possibly, Jump might have something different to offer readers. So, of course, I had to read it ...

Jump is a YA Sci-fi novel set in the near future, in a world where people travel by D-Mat, a worldwide teleportation system. The novel opens with Clair and her friend Libby, a pair of likeable girls who live a fairly typical existence for teenagers of their era--in the first chapter we see them vying to join the Crashlanders, a clique who organise Rave like parties in remote parts of the world. The story really gets underway, however, when both Clair and Libby receive a meme, (or chain letter,) inviting them to use Improvement, which offers them and others the chance to change things about their appearance. Libby uses it but Clair is skeptical. Then it turns out that Libby has fallen into a trap. To rescue her friend, Clair finds herself asking a lot of questions about the world that she lives in. Perhaps the d-mat is nowhere near as safe as its creators claim and perhaps there is a lot of room for people to misuse teleportation for personal gain. From there, the reader is taken through a wild ride as Clair starts making a number of enemies and finds herself on the run (and constantly being shot at,) along with a motley crew of individuals. Without giving too much away, there were some excellent plot twists, and an exciting showdown and another interesting plot twist that leads in to the sequel, Crash. I thought that Clair was a decent heroine, who in many ways reminded me of a Doctor Who companion--she had that blend of intelligence, ethics and resourcefulness.

Overall, I enjoyed Jump and would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read a YA novel that reaches a little bit outside the square. If Twilight style romances are your thing, however, you may be a little disappointed ...