Suzy is twelve and she can't believe that her best friend
died from drowning on a beach holiday. Franny was a strong
swimmer. How could she drown? Then on a school trip, the
silent, shocked Suzy notices an exhibit of tiny colourless,
poisonous jellyfish. THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH, she
realises, is that they are constantly stinging people. Maybe that's what
happened to Franny.
Suzy is a clever, conscientious, logical person and she
works out that if 150 million jellyfish stings occur each
year, this is one sting per 45 people of Earth's
population. This makes it likely that she knows someone who
has been stung, though nobody has said so. Maybe this is
because the person who was stung has died, making drowning
not so random after all. I have to admire the girl for
working all this out, and it is human nature to try to make
sense of the world, especially the parts of it we can't
control.
As Suzy's worried parents talk through her problems with a
child counsellor, we learn that Suzy won't speak to anyone
since the accident. Her separated parents have been keeping
to the routine but she has shut herself off from the
world. Why she feels this way, and how she deals with her
grief, occupy the rest of the story. Other issues on the
girl's mind include the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but
for now she wants to test her jellyfish hypothesis. And
she makes plans to talk it through with a researcher, somehow.
Some young people go through phases of being
uncommunicative, maybe through depression or from family
circumstances. This can occur quite early and it's good to
see that recognised in this YA book. Whatever the cause,
the young person doesn't realise that this hurts the people
around them. One positive influence on our heroine is her
science teacher, who has introduced her to the concept of
researching and proving a theory.
We learn a lot from this tale, and especially we learn THE
THING ABOUT JELLYFISH is that they are taking over the
oceans because we have overfished their predators. But we
also learn that Suzy's friendship isn't so simple, and that
growing up is a challenge. I was surprised by how involved
I became in Ali Benjamin's tale, and I recommend it highly
to young adults or those who seek to understand them.
A stunning debut about how grief can open the world in
magical ways.
After her best friend dies in a drowning accident, Suzy is
convinced that the true cause of the tragedy was a rare
jellyfish sting. Retreating into a silent world of
imagination, she crafts a plan to prove her theory—even if
it means traveling the globe, alone. Suzy's achingly
heartfelt journey explores life, death, the astonishing
wonder of the universe...and the potential for love and hope
right next door.
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