The author of The Thing About Jellyfish is Ali Benjamin. You may recognize this author if you’ve read The Next Great Paulie Fink, also by him.
Ali Benjamin is a beloved and acclaimed New York Times bestseller. Her stunning entrance to the writing world has been addressed as “a shining example of the highs and lows of early adolescence” that will touch readers of every age in the most unforeseen ways.
The Thing About Jellyfish has won a National Book Award Finalist. To give you an idea of what I will be talking about, here’s the blurb of the book:
“Suzy Swanson has always known things that other kids don’t. She can explain the sleep patterns of ants. She knows there are 150 million jellyfish stings on the planet every year. She knows that the average middle school kid contains about 20 billion of Shakespeare’s atoms. But she can’t understand how Franny Jackson’s lifetime could be cut so short… before Suzy could make up for the worst thing she’d ever done to her best friend. When Suzy formulates a bold plan to travel across the globe—alone—to learn the truth about how her friend died, she discovers that the answers she most needs could be right in her backyard.”
Hopefully, that got you a little idea of what the book would be about. Of course, I don’t want to spoil the ENTIRE book for you, in case you decide to try it out. I’ll give you a very very tiny brief about it.
Suzy doesn’t talk. She’s not mute, she just doesn’t prefer to. She attends the Eugene Field Memorial Middle School in South Grove, Massachusetts. You will find flashbacks pretty much a lot near the beginning of the book, but as it gets near the end, the flashbacks become less frequent.
The Thing About Jellyfish is a sad realistic fiction book. I would recommend this book if you have read any other sad realistic fiction books, or if you read any other books with Ali Benjamin as an author, but if you just want to try and see if it’s a good book for you, go ahead! I believe that anyone try this book if they would like to. If this book caught your attention, make sure to try it out. If you do, I hope this is the right book for you!