5 Novels Featured In Finding Jupiter
Hi! I write books about bookish teens being bookish and the books they get bookish with. Classic novels anchored my teenage life, so they also anchor the books I write for teenagers. They’re not tossed in for vibes or as props. I’ve touched on this in interviews and I’m almost positive some of this is explored in the lesson plans on the free downloads section of this website. Here are the 5 books featured in Finding Jupiter…
#1 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This was the book that awakened my empathy, was my people-watcher origin story and turned me into a person who reads for pleasure. I wanted Finding Jupiter to be all of that—maybe not the people watching part— for young people and have heard from readers, young and older, that my mission is accomplished. The main character, Ray Jr./Jupiter, creates blackout poetry from this novel throughout the book.
Fun Fact: If you look closely at the cover of Finding Jupiter, you’ll see that the background is a page from The Great Gatsby. LOVE the design team at Penguin Random House.
#2 Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
In Finding Jupiter, the main character, Jupiter, pulls her well-worn copy of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere out poolside at the YMCA, pretending to read it while listening to “Crazy In Love” trying to look cute for, and un-obsessed with, Orion, The Boy. All things I could be caught doing as well as a solidly young adult newlywed when this book came out. Technically Jupiter uses it as a prop, but the short story collection is re-read compulsively by Jupiter and by me, and hopefully by more readers as a result. Especially Black girls and women.
#3 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston
Jupiter, like Janie, the main character in this classic novel by Zora Neal Hurston, tries her best not to be head over heels in love, out of fear of how vulnerable it makes a girl and how silly it makes girls look and feel sometimes, among other less superficial fears. Both characters fight themselves and, to a degree, others to love the beautiful guys who loved them on sight. Jupiter creates blackout poetry from this novel throughout Finding Jupiter. This book should be read by girls when they’re girls, and again and over again as grown women.
#4 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
I read this in high school for class. It was unsettling, and I never read it again, but watching a Black girl’s life break her brain, sparked my interest in psychology and opened my eyes to the ways Black girls, especially dark-skinned Black girls need to be protected. Originally, I created blackout poetry from this classic Toni Morrison novel to be used in Finding Jupiter as well. But the poems weren’t as powerful in matching the plot and moving it along as the Gatsby poems, which help Jupiter work through her feelings of missing her father, and The Eyes opens, which help her wrestle with her feelings for Orion, so we cut them. But Orion sees the book and her poems when she allows him inside her treehouse. I may share them one day.
#5 Black Boy by Richard Wright
I wrote Finding Jupiter in hopes that boys would read it too. I created Orion to present a sensitive, athletic, beautiful, emotional Black boy as a mirror to boys who need the representation and as a window to anyone who needs reminders that these boys exist, sometimes, in spite of friends or family members or a world that only wants to see them one way. When I read this book in high school, I was fascinated by the freedom and autonomy that Richard Wright exercised at such a young age. It was a masterclass in the power of reading and a child understanding the ability they have to shape their own lives, and mirrors Orion’s awakening to his own power. Every Black boy should read it. The way Orion uses it in Finding Jupiter is adorable.
I hope you read all these books as well as Finding Jupiter. These books kinda made me.
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Happy Reading!
XO, Kel