The Jumbee

LadyCDaae Fri Dec 17, 2010 4:02 pm

No, it's not a type of gummy candy. It's the Caribbean patois word for "spirit"--and the title of a new PotO-based YA novel by Pamela Keyes:

http://www.amazon.com/Jumbee-Pamela-Keyes/dp/0803733135/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292600757&sr=8-1

I have to say, as much as "Phantom set in a modern high school in the Caribbean with Romeo and Juliet as a backdrop" sounds like something you'd encounter in the darker corners of FanFiction.net...it's actually not half-bad. There's a lot of teen angst to be sure, but the relationship between Alan (the Phantom character) and Esti (Christine) is very well drawn--alluring, complex, and not really healthy for either of them in the long run. In a nice twist, Esti's father was also a mentor to Alan (the two even share the same name) which enables Keyes to keep the father figure issues in play even though the age gap between the two is reduced (his twenty-five to her seventeen-ish). The subplot about Esti's mother having a drinking problem was pretty useless, though.

Anyone else picked this up? What did you think?

~LCD