Review: The Nature of Jade by: Deb Caletti

Where I got it: The Library
Rating: 3.5 stars (A great read.)
Cover Rating: 3 stars (Simple, but accurate they really catch Jade's anxiety on the cover and I enjoy how they released all Caletti's books with the color strips on the top)
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Jade is not her illness. She has been diagnosed with Panic Disorder, but she will not die. At night Jade sits and watches the elephant cam on her computer, a perk of moving to Seattle is the zoo. One night she sees a boy in a red jacket, a boy she has seen during the day with a kid. She wonders why he sneaks into the zoo to look at the elephants. After Jade tries to "accidentally" bump into him at the zoo a few times to no avail the elephant keeper offers to have her volunteer. Jade decides to swallow her fear and accept. While working she meets the mysterious red jacket boy (Sebastian) and his son (Bo). Even though Sebastian has a kid Jade thinks that falling in love with him is okay. When she digs into his past however, she finds some unsavory things. She has to decided should she stay or should she go? Should she tell her parents where she has really been going everyday?

This was quite an enjoyable book. A new take on the old love story. You don't read too many girl likes boy, boy has son books, at least not YA. Each chapter starts off with a little Psychology snippet from Dr. Jerome R. Clade. I think this adds to the novel giving you some interesting tidbits. I always love learning things when I read and not being bored because all I'm doing is learning. This was still a great fun read. If you are not an animal lover however, you may be put off by how much Jade really loves the elephants. A lot of this book revolves around elephants and relates them to humans and their emotions. So that said, this book makes me glad to have read it and I feel a little bit wiser with the fun facts I learned about animals.

Favorite Line: "The pain of being without him---butterflies crashing against rocks."