the thing about jellyfish. ali benjamin. (318)

i picked up ali benjamin's the thing about jellyfish because it is national book finalist in the young adult category.  i wasn't sure what the story was about, but liked the title and figured since it was nominated, it should be good.  and it was.

the thing about jellyfish was the story of a young girl, suzy, that recently lost her best friend.  the lost was sudden, her best friend, franny, died on a beach, her heart just stopped.  as a result, suzy went mute a couple of months after her friend's death.  losing a best friend is difficult at any age, but to have lost your best friend at 12, is even more difficult.   however, age isn't the only factor, as it is slowly revealed, franny and suzy had grown apart.  franny had become one of the "cool" yet mean girls, and their last incident was when suzy froze pee and put it inside franny's locker.  suzy was never able to apologize and this guilt only add to her difficulty to cope.

frozen pee was extreme, but when suzy explained her reasoning for it, it made sense, though it was still awful.  suzy was a socially awkward kid, i actually read her as autistic, but when i googled to see if that was the intent of the author, i can not find anything on it.  i assumed that she was because it was noted when she was younger on a report card that she wasn't adapt at making friends.  also, the way that she fixated on subjects ie jellyfish, i assumed that she was autistic.  however, i mean everyone is awkward at that age, so that could be it as well.

so the thing about jellyfish in this novel is that suzy became fixated on the theory that franny died after being stung by an irukandij jellyfish.  her obsession about the jellyfish fueled by her need to understand what happen to her friend.  the novel (which i absolutely loved) was set up like a science project with the following sections:  purpose, hypothesis, background, variables, procedure, and results, and we see suzy test her theory and ultimately come to terms with the lost of her friend. i have to add that the novel is also very informative, i learned alot about jellyfish and other great facts.  for example, that the average middle school student has about 20 billion atoms from shakespeare, which means that suzy has some of franny's atoms, and we have atoms of any of the people that we lost.  (what a great lesson for kids to learn when dealing with a loss.)

i also loved how in the end, suzy found friends that understood her and didn't think she was "weird".  

this novel is really great and i highly recommend it, especially if you have a young reader.  it is helpful not only with grieving the loss of a love one, but also helpful with those awkward years.  it shows kids that we are all a little weird, and that you will find friends that will love you for who you are.