Review: My Name is Finn Jupiter by Gareth Crocker

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Keywords: young adult, strong female characters, South African authors

South African author Gareth Crocker is one of my favorite authors and falls into the "will always buy" category. He never disappoints.

With My Name is Finn Jupiter, Gareth moves into young adult literature. Finn –a young woman– is a high schooler in Victory, Colorado. She is strongly independent, non-conformist, highly unconventional, a skilled climber, and possessing the ability to perceive, analyze, and act while others are still standing around wondering what's happening. Finn's father goes missing in the Rockies at the same time an unimaginable disaster strikes Victory. With all available resources tied up with the disaster, Finn knows that she is the only hope her father has of survival and she won't be stopped.

I enjoyed this story as a grizzled old-timer and I'm positive I would have loved it as a young adult. I could be critical if reading it through my trifocal lenses but as a young person it would have hit all the marks for a satisfying escapist story. Finn Jupiter is exactly the kind of person the young me would want to be friends with, the kind of person who does and says things I would fantasize about doing. The dialog is snappy, very funny at times and gut wrenching others. If you're purchasing this for a young person, be aware that there is some mild cursing but nothing that is out of the ordinary these days which I can say as I work in a university library.

The book ends with a pretty slick setup for sequels that will move the story and characters in a different direction. I intend to read the next installment in Finn's adventures.

My Name is Finn Jupiter is only available as an e-book at this time and can be downloaded from Amazon here.