Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

When Jack meets his new foster brother, he already knows three things about him: 
      Joseph almost killed a teacher.
      He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain.
      He has a daughter.  Her name is Jupiter.  And he has never seen her.
What Jack doesn't know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl.
Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help.
But the past can't be shaken off.  Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen.  The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.

This story.  This beautiful, heart-wrenching, gorgeous, impossibly moving story.  This is the kind of story that will stick with me forever; the one that I will tell others that they have to read; the one that changed me for having read it; the one that broke my heart.  

Joseph.  Has there been a more real person than Joseph in the books that I have read this year?  Has there been someone who so solidly knew what he wanted to do, what he NEEDED to do and who relentlessly pushed himself to do it?  Is there anyone who deserved all of the good things that life should have given him more than Joseph?  and Jack.  Jack who had his back--and whose back was most solidly had by Joseph.  

I don't know how Gary D. Schmidt can write such simple, spare sentences that add up to such an emotionally charged piece but he is a master of story.  I read much of the book with tears rolling down my face and at the end I felt like there was a hole, a space where something precious had been and was now gone.  It was hard and painful and I am so grateful that Gary D. Schmidt wrote this story and that I got to read it.  Because it was honest.  It was real.  It was never manipulated or contrived but it was also never easy.  

 I received an ARC of this book at ILA.