Rating: 
Summary: They seek him here, they seek him there.
Review: I love to read this book again and again. It is light and yet absorbing, fast paced and yet it gets to the root of your emotions.
We are introduced to the main character, Davy Rice, as a young boy, escaping an abusive father. This is where the story starts because it is also the first time he experiences a Jump. Not that he believes it at first but this young lad has the ability to teleport.
OK, I know what you are thinking. That this is a tired old theme, already used to death in Sci-Fi. Well you are wrong. Steven Gould, has taken a refreshing look at this subject and deals with it in a realistic way. Davy, as a character, is very easy to understand and empathize with and for this reason we truly believe what is happening to him.
Before he can safely live a life away from his Father, Davy must get some cash, establish an identity, rent an apartment and all the things which you and I take for granted. This is made fascinating because he is a minor and has that special skill that no one is aware of. To complicate his life, Davy starts to fall for an older woman. A college girl who Davy impresses with his knowledge of the city and obvious wealth. Add to this the fact that his long lost Mother reenters the picture and Davy has a pretty full life.
This is just where the adventure begins. His mother becomes embroiled in a plane highjacking but Davy's efforts to involve himself are threatened by a police officer who is curious about his wealthy life style and questionable ID. The pace moves up to a higher level as Davy falls into international intrigue and ruthless terrorism.
This novel is a terrific first outing from Gould and I would recommend it to anyone who still has a little adventure left in their soul.
Rating: 
Summary: A MOST EXCELLENT ADVENTURE...
Review: David Rice is a highly intelligent, well read, seventeen year old boy, who has been physically and verbally abused by his father for years. Abandoned by his mother, Mary, when he was twelve, because David's father, her husband, also battered her, David decides that he cannot take any more abuse. In a moment of great personal angst, he discovers that he can teleport himself to a safe place. So, begins a new life for David and a most excellent adventure for the reader.David, to his own amazement, can teleport, but there there is a method to the madness, which he soon discovers. His new ability, however, enables him to not have to return home. He, instead, starts a new life for himself, one which the reader will enjoy sharing, as his new found ability, which he calls "jumping", leads to many interesting situations. Some of the situations in which he gets involved turn him into an unusual sort of super hero. Inventive and absorbing, this is a very special coming of age story that will keep the reader turning the pages. The only problem with the book is that many of David's initial problems, while on his own, arise out of his lack of a social security number. This is a highly unlikely case scenario, because David would have needed a social security number for some of the standardized tests a student is required to take, as the social security number would act as the student's identification number. Moreover, his father would have needed David's social security number in order to claim him as a deduction on his income tax return. This is, however, the only false note in this otherwise totally delightful tale of a young man with powers of teleportation and the ways in which he puts his ability to use.
Rating:
Summary: Entertwines crafty sci-fi, romance, and endearing characters
Review: Normally, when you read a novel that is heavy science fiction, there is not enough room in the plot to add romance. Although people say that romance in today's world amounts to how much sexual themes a book is loaded with (and believe me, this book is no exception; its not for young kids), but the romance that takes place in this book is very real with the consequence our young protagonist David Rice deals with; his deadly secret of teleportation. Hence the name Jumper. He can jump to anywhere he wants, but only where he remembers. The plot is pretty predictable; he gets rich, gets a girl, fights a little bit of crime, and falls in love with the girl. But to describe the romance and action of this book in one simple sentence would not pay homage to the hard work put into the writing of this story. There is sex in this book, as well as the prospect of rape, but the sex is not out of enjoyment, but out of endearment. Its very gently described too, and your head won't be spinning like it does when you watch a graphical sex scene in a raunch teen flick. Steven Gould writes with eloquence, passion, and sometimes the passages brought tears to my eyes. I actually could feel the characters' woes, problems, and feelings. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but while a picture is swept away in your thoughts very easily, strong words will stay in your heart forever, and Steven Gould accomplishes just that.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-Read
Review: Okay, I've just read several reviews that tear this book apart because of the rape scene at the start of the novel. I must say that while many of you may be shocked, terrible things like sexual assault occur all the time. And Gould does a fine job of showing how traumatic the event is--it's how the character learns that he has a special gift (if you can call it that). At any rate, I hope that the realism in this novel doesn't deter too many people from taking the opportunity to journey through its pages. If you or your kids can't handle explicit reality mingled with well-crafted science fiction, then I guess it's unfortunate that you'll never have the pleasure of reading this book. If you can handle the fact that bad things happen to kids, don't miss this book. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: EXCITING AND IMAGINATIVE
Review: I have long been a fan of Steven Gould but amazingly enough until just recently I haven't read his first novel JUMPER. I was not disappointed. Did it have a few little flaws? Yes. Did it sound like an advisement for psychotherapy, you bet. But for the most part I didn't care, it was still one heck of a story. What would you do if you were seventeen and could teleport? Rob a bank? Probably. Have some fun? Yes. In fact Davy, the teleporter in this story, is probably quite a bit more reserved than would have been a certain seventeen year old I knew some years back. This is a story for young adults, emphasize the adult please. I've seen a considerable number of poor reviews based on the premise that JUMPER was unexpectedly too racy for young children. It's not. There is no graphic sex, it's all implied and what is there is integral to the plot. This is a story of reactions. How someone would react to finding he has a strange new gift. It doesn't dwell on the mechanics of teleportation it just gives it to you as an established fact and this works very well. No need to develop new natural rules and try to convince us it really could happen, it's a story, believe and enjoy! Anyway JUMPER is no prizewinner but it is as darn good story and I certainly enjoyed it and would RECOMMEND it whole-heartedly.
Rating:
Summary: Jumper brings you right into the book
Review: Steven Gould has made the perfect book! A book With actoin, suspense, and love. Its about a boy whos father abuses him for the littleest things. When he finaly runs away he gets picked up by a so called fiendly trucker. He takes him to a resteraunt and gets him a big breakfast. But after about a half an hour they pull off to a desreted turn off. There are a couple of pick up trucks there and nothing else. The driver gets out of the car and tells him that he wants him to meet a couple of friends of his. The next thing he knows hes beinged raped. But when they start taking his clothes off he some how telaports him self hundereds of miles back to his house. Then every things starts to unfold and he finds out that he can only telaport to places hes been. This book is suited for about the ages 13 and older. it deals with real life problems that teenagers go through.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves ten stars!
Review: loved this one. The idea of a person being able to teleport from place to place is not new, but it still has the power to fascinate. Just think, what would you do if you could jump from one side of the world to another just by concentrating upon a photograph of your destination? David Rice can do just that as he learns quite by accident during a moment of heightened stress when his abusive father attacks him. We follow David as he learns what he can do, but not why he can do it. This frustrates him until he becomes distracted by other events. He robs a bank, gets a girlfriend older than him, finds his estranged mother, loses the girl, loses the mother, gets the girl again, tracks down a bunch of terrorists.... phew! David sure is busy in this book and I love it! Oh yeah, he makes a fool out of the FBI and police at nearly every turn... great! Jumper is simply great fun. Once you pick it up, you'll not want to put it down until the last page is read. When you've finished it, you'll want to put it somewhere safe. I guarantee you'll want to read it again. Mark E. Cooper
Author of The Warrior Within (ISBN: 094512200)
Rating:
Summary: More science fiction please, and less angst!
Review: "Jumper" is an enjoyable book, and its concept of the boy who can inexplicably teleport to any place in the world is a great one. However, the book becomes bogged down in its melodramatic plot and contrived situations, reminiscent at times of a Danielle Steele novel. Not to mention the sex, violence and strong language at times made me wonder if this was indeed appropriate for the YA market. Well, I read Stephen King when I was a 'tween and I didn't care- nevertheless, I think this book would have benefited from a lighter touch (such as William Sleator provides in his YA sci-fi books). The sheer amount of dysfunction in our hero Davy Rice's life, such as the alcoholic abusive daddy, the long-lost mama who comes back into his life after half a dozen years, the gorgeous older love interest and her likewise abusive ex, the fanatical Arab terrorists who blow up his nearest and dearest, etc., etc... I found myself rolling my eyes at various points in the story. To give an example of the occasional heavy-handedness of the prose, when Davy is reunited with his mother, she urges him to join Alanon, so he can "make amends" and overcome his "arrested emotional development," and describes its 12-step program for several pages. I do hope the author is a highly paid spokesman for Alanon and the AA, as endorsements for those organizations continually pop up in this book. It's also somewhat dated, which give it moments of unintentional amusement. It was published in '92 but shows signs of being written in the late '80s, as there are mentions of "the arms race," "perestroika," as well as Davy threatening to take his services over to the Russians. There are also no mentions of the internet and wireless explosion- computers are barely mentioned, and Davy does his research via microfiche. The New York depicted in the story is very much the sordid, nasty pre-Rudy Giuliani city of yore, with a Times Square infested by pimps, druggies and ....- a world apart from its current cleaned-up Disneyfied condition. But perhaps the creepiest part was when Davy whisks his Arab terrorist nemesis to the observation deck of the WORLD TRADE CENTER! Ugh! Anyway, this is a quick and amusing read for older teens, but I would personally have liked to have seen more science fiction, and less angst and melodrama.
Rating:
Summary: A very good book, with incredibly realistic content
Review: I have to say that this Gould guy knows his stuff about what goes on in the world. I read the objections below to the attempted rape scene, but the problem is that this is a common thing for runaway boys as well as girls. The kind of father Davy has is common enough too, and the kid's decision to run away was not untypical under the circumstances. Reading it made me think that either Gould had "been there, done that" or else he had really done his homework. I suspect he was there to some degree at least, because his knowledge of 12 step sounds like what only a veteran would write, and the street reality is so vivid. There's real depth there. For Pete's sake people, runaway kids end up being auctioned off in bars and nightclubs, while stuffed with drugs, and worse than this. That's the real world - out of the frying pan into the fire. The attempted rape scene in this book is lightweight. Really, it is. For runaways it goes way downhill from there. Think about that next time you see some of these kids on the street, or soliciting men in Mercedes' for sex. They get really screwed up from it all, believe me. I recommend the book "Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate, and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children". (Which is not to say that predators only target runaways by any means.) When kids go runaway, they are lucky to find a place of safety. Yes, I know they do sometimes. But they also end up as hamburger in the sex industry machine. Often enough, they wind up dead. The book is very well written, a revenge fantasy. At the same time it is instructional to kids in terms of making them start to really think about what they would have to do in order to survive if they ran away. You see, I wanted to run away when I was 16. I hated my life at home, I was desperate. Lucky for me, (I think) a religious group counselor, who was not a predator (and yes Virginia, predators become youth group leades as part of their MO with frequency) talked me out of it. Who knows. Maybe, just maybe, I might have done well. But odds are against it. Things are tough enough as it is. I more or less ran away at 18, a so-called adult. At least I could work. But trying to get a job, with no money, after my only pair of jeans had the right leg cut off by a hospital because I had an accident - not fun at all. I know two other former runaways. One, a woman who ran away to New York when she was 15, now has a large scar on her arm from where some junkies saved her life from a heroin overdose. They injected her arm with a large amount salt to cause pain and save her life. The other was a man who fought back against his father's beatings finally, ran out the door at 14, and was taken in as a novice by a Christian monastery a thousand miles away. He was lucky. She was lucky too, and came home after 3 months. I think the overdose woke her up enough to send her home, and she was lucky enough not to go all the way down, dying young as a junkie-prostitute. Luck, for both, provided a safe place to survive - for the girl it was her home after she returned. That's how I read this book. A teenage coming-of-age fantasy story, that proposes an outrageous premise as a game, then uses it to explore the gritty, viciously nasty reality of what it really would require. It also goes inside the head of a teen wanting to run away pretty well, and if, by any chance, a teen would still want to run away after reading, (which I doubt very much) they would be forearmed a little bit. For those teens who are thinking about running away, maybe you have to do it. Maybe. But you had better understand that mostly surviving as a runaway is a matter of luck. Really. Better to go to a school counselor, or child protection services first if you can. Because, fact is, you can't teleport out of trouble, and it is likely to come looking for you. You know that, right?
Rating:
Summary: I have read it several times...
Review: ...and I still think it is a great book. Gould does a great job with the young characters in all of his books, but he does a particularly good job in this one. Jumper satisfies on all levels, and the author isn't afraid to go for the occaisional laugh. You get it all, here, science fiction, terrorists, bad guys, good(?) guys, questionable government spooks, a few laughs, and an apparently pretty girl. Read it, trust me... you'll like it.
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