Customer Reviews

The Smoke Jumper

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

This book turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. I really liked The Horse Whisperer, and loved The Loop, but The Smoke Jumper falls well short of both. The story begins with two best friends, Ed Tully and Connor Ford, who spend their summers "smoke jumping" - that is, parachuting into remote locations to fight forest fires. Then Ed falls in love with the beautiful Julia Bishop. Their relationship is perfect until he introduces her to Connor, and girlfriend and best friend find themselves fighting an intense attraction to each other, which mortifies them both in light of their love and respect for Ed. Julia spends the summer as a counselor in a rehab program for delinquent teens, taking them camping in the mountains in hopes of recovering their lost souls. Disaster strikes when a forest fire claims the life of one teenager, badly scathes and blinds Ed, and leaves Julia consumed with feelings of guilt over them both.

Here the story takes an abrupt change in direction. Julia, overwhelmed by feelings of obligation, helps Ed adjust to life without sight, and ultimately marries him. Connor, unable to bear seeing the woman he loves married to another man, takes off to begin a new career as a photojournalist in the various war-torn countries of the world, returning from time to time for brief visits. When Julia and Ed are unable to have a child due to Ed's apparent sterility, they convince Connor to father a child for them. Shortly thereafter Connor departs for good, thrown into despair at the realization that he is now severed not only from Julia, but also from a daughter that is not his. It is only after Ed's eventual death that Julia can embark upon a journey of her own and allow herself the hope that perhaps she and Connor might be united at last.

If the above synopsis of the story seems a bit disjointed, that should give you an idea of how the book itself runs. Evans has created a hodgepodge of settings, plotlines, and themes that undermine the significance of the title. Less than half of the book actually deals with smoke jumping (and even here it is not the primary object of the story), with the theme only recurring briefly at the very end, under entirely different circumstances. Perhaps it would be more descriptive to say that Evans "dabbles" with themes. He dabbles with smoke jumping, he dabbles with delinquent teenagers, he dabbles with music, he dabbles with blindness, he dabbles with photography, and he dabbles with various wartorn places such as Bosnia and parts of Africa. None of them really has anything to do with the central love triangle, and seem tacked-on and interchangeable. In the second part of the book, each time we see Connor, he is in a new place, in the middle of a different war or conflict. We get bits and pieces of the various stories, but the reader is left at best indifferent and at worst downright confused due to the lack of groundwork for the scenes. We are simply plopped down in one place for a short while, then snatched right back up, never to return. There is not enough devlopment for us to truly understand or even to care what is going on in each of the places Connor finds himself.

Another problem, partly stemming from the above and partly due to the writing style, is that the story seems very unrealistic. One can't really imagine all of this happening in real life. The interaction between characters frequently seems affected and unbelievable. The dialogue is often unnatural. In particular, the speech and mannerisms of the teenagers in Julia's program, and later of her own 8-year-old daughter Amy, do not reflect the actual patterns of speech and behavior of children in those age groups. Adding to the sense of falsity is Evans's frequent use of cliche ideas and phrases such as "I've loved you from the first moment I saw you," and "he woke with a start and for a moment couldn't figure out where he was." Such declarations and images have been so overused that one can only groan at coming across them yet again.

I was also horrified by the scene in which a young African soldier is made to publicly appologize to a girl he raped in front of all their peers. In real life such a display would be utterly humiliating to the victimized girl, especially considering that she had told no one about the incident. And yet the girl in the story seems absolutely fine with the arrangement.

There are also a few factual errors in the book which, while relatively insignificant, still disappointed me slightly. For example, Amy has curly hair, while both her parents - Julia and Connor - have straight hair. Curly hair is a dominant trait in humans, so if a person carries the gene for curly hair, they will HAVE curly hair. Therefore, neither Julia nor Connor could have carried the curly hair gene, since both have straight hair, and so there is no way Amy could have inherited a curly hair gene from either one.

So far I've only expounded on the faults I've found with the book, but I must say it's certainly not among the worst I've ever read. While not entirely engaging, it is moderately entertaining and very easy to read. For a reader less nit-picky than myself, the storyline may even be enjoyable. It's the kind of book to take with you to a doctor's office waiting room or similar situations, where you aren't inclined to read something "heavy" and yet still need to pass the time. Overall though, I wouldn't highly recommend it. It just doesn't live up to Evans's potential, and I'm sure you can find numerous more worthwhile alternatives in recreational reading material.

This is the first of Evans books that I've read and I really enjoyed it. The three words that describe the book best for me would be honesty, devotion, and passion. I didn't know what to expect of the book and was pleasantly surprised. I recomend this book to people wanting a real page turner.

First, I have to say that I was very disappointed to see that several reviews here have spoilers for this book! I always come here first to read reviews BEFORE reading a book...if you're doing so, be warned because several reviewers gave most of the story away!

So...on to the book. After reading both of Nicholas Evan's other novels, this one was a bit disappointing. However, I did enjoy it, it was written beautifully, it just didn't move or inspire me like The Loop or The Horse Whisperer.

Without giving too much away, this story is about Ed, Connor and Julia. Ed and Connor are best friends and smoke jumpers in Montana together each summer. One summer Ed brings his new girlfriend Julia along, as she's a counselor for troubled teens in a near-by camp. What ensues is much adventure, as they all have jobs that lean towards the dangerous side. After the summer fades, their lives all take very unpredictable turns, leading them each in their own direction. Will they all stay friends, down these roads life leads them?

What I enjoyed most about this book was that the story was so unpredictable. Evans did a good job of taking us down a path that was amazing as it was surprising. Again, it's not my favorite of his, but he took a chance with something slightly different and did a pretty good job of it.

This book is by far the best work of a brilliant writer. Evans creates wonderful charactars that are easy to care about, and will keep you turning pages. This is a beautiful story of human emotion, choices, and love. I highly recommend it.

Unhappily, these characters just seem "too cute" for me to
believe or become interested in. The whole atmosphere of
this book seems highly artificial, and it is difficult to
get interested in the story or the characters.

literally - I found myself on the edge of my seat and holding my breath so many times while reading this wonderful book that I would have to set it aside, calm down, and return to it later. I can't remember the last book that made me care so much about the characters, to the point that the tension became almost unbearable. If you like Evans' first two novels I think you will like this one, too, but be prepared for a much edgier story and more nail-biting action.

But this one did... I was so moved after reading this that I thought about it for days. Nicholas Evans has a way of wedging his characters into both your brain and your heart.

This was an EXCELLENT book! Ladies, don't let the title fool you. If you think you may not like this because it is about smoke jumpers, think again. Two of the main characters are smoke jumpers but there's much more to the book. It's more of a love story than a story about smoke jumpers. I would think this book would appeal more to women than to men. The author does a really good job in building the characters.

Sometimes I get bored with a book half way through and stop reading it. This kept my attention and it was hard to put down!
I hope they make a movie out of this book!

An interesting storyline, characters that you'll feel like you know personally, making it all a book that you'll wish could go on and on.

The Smoke Jumper is one of those books that is predictable yet you enjoy the predictability of it. You know what's going to happen when you flip the page yet the way that Nicholas Evans tells it is incredible. The way he is able to tell this age old tale of a love triangle pulls you in and gives you a real intimate look at the characters. You feel their pain, sorrow and joy and the journey from beginning to end. It seems as if it is a lifetime although this isn't a bad thing here though as it just accentuates the end. It helps you to empathise with Connor and Julia at the end because you seem to understand how they got there and the path and obstacles that made that moment even more special. Overall, even with its predictability, if you're into these kinds of romance books by authors like Evans (ie. Nicholas Sparks) you would enjoy this one.

At the first read, this book seems very different from both The Horse Whisperer and The Loop. For one thing, time span of the story in the Smoke Jumper is significantly longer than both the former. While The Horse Whisperer was a story stretched only a few months and The Loop for a year, The Smoke Jumper covers events up to a few years.

What this means is this book does not have the luxury of the former 2 to have the completeness in every detail of the story. I was initially quite disappointed with the lack of conversations (which are Nicholas Evans strong points) and details in the story, coming from strong expectations after The Loop, which I thought was superb.

However the more I read into it, the more I realized the grand scale of this story. I didn't fully appreciate the story until the I read it the second time.

It is without a doubt a very tragic story. You can't help but feel for all the characters, especially the unfairness of life towards Ed. All of them just become alive at the hands of Nicholas Evans. Certain scenes were so memorable I find myself kept picturing it over and over again in my mind and more than likely will bring tears to your eyes. The most memorable parts were Julia's rescue by Connor, Connor's confession, Ed's final letter and the last few pages of the book.

This is one story I will remember for a long, long time.