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    The Nature of Jade
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    The Nature of Jade
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    The Nature of Jade
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Nature of Jade

    Written by Deb Caletti

    Narrated by Julia Whelan

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    Since being diagnosed with Panic Disorder, Jade DeLuna is trying her best to stay calm, and visiting the elephants at the nearby zoo seems to help. That's why Jade keeps the live zoo webcam on in her room, and where she first sees Sebastian.

    When she finally meets him, their connection is immediate, and soon Jade is drawn into Sebastian's life with his son and his grandmother on their Seattle houseboat. Even though the situation is complicated, Jade hasn't felt this safe in a long time.

    Until she learns that Sebastian is hiding a terrible secret. A secret that will force Jade to decide between what is right, and what feels right. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 20, 2010
    ISBN9781423396574
    Author

    Deb Caletti

    Deb Caletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of over sixteen books for adults and young adults, including Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, a finalist for the National Book Award; A Heart in a Body in the World, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Girl, Unframed; and One Great Lie. Her books have also won the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and numerous other state awards and honors, and she was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. She lives with her family in Seattle.

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    Reviews for The Nature of Jade

    4/5

    214 ratings17 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Great description of what it is like to have an anxiety disorder. The other characters were 2-dimensional. There wasn't room between the main character's thoughts to flesh out anyone else.
    • 5/5
      Jade suffers from panic disorders and, while an A student, is most comfortable viewing life from her bedroom and/or behind a computer screen. She begins watching a webcam trained on nearby zoo elephants. A handsome young man in a red jacket and with a baby also catches her eye. With some prodding from her Psychologist (sympathetic) Jade volunteers to help with the elephants and soon meets up with the boy (Sebastian). She falls in love --hard-- and only slowly begins to see Sebastian for who and what he is. Their relationship ends (as it must) but Jade grows as a person.Caletti excels at "girls' stories" and showing personal growth in subtle, believable ways. She does it again with this book. Jade is sympathetic as someone slowly gaining confidence and becoming comfortable in her skin. Sebastian's secret (he has kidnapped his baby from its mother and is living on the lam) is a punch yet credible. The mother is also sympathetic as a woman desperate to hang on to her youth and her daughter. Notes on animal behavior are a nice bonus and reflect Jade's growth. Minor quibble: Jade's access to elephants would probably not be possible in this litigious day and age.
    • 3/5
      The narrator did a very good job and the writing was very well done. Great anxiety/panic disorder rep. I'm not the targeted demographic for this book so I was pretty bored by it and the themes of loss and change, saying goodbye, starting over pulled out some general feelings of melancholy, I was glad to be done with this book by the end and lost interest altogether. However, I think for someone in their mid teens- early 20s, this would be a great book.
    • 1/5
      Began with an interesting premise but was poorly realized. Main character's anxiety issues came off as whiny or empty-headed in places, which I don't think was intended.
    • 5/5
      This ended up being such a sweet book with some of the things that I've been thinking about about life, relationships, and love. And it has elephants.
    • 4/5
      Jade lives near the zoo and loves the elephants. There are webcams that always are focused on the elephants and Jade's computer is always connected to those. One day she sees a young man with a baby at the elephant house. He comes back frequently and she becomes fascinated with him. Eventually she ends up working after school with the elephants and meets him.....and starts to get to know him......
    • 4/5
      Only 3 and a half stars because the ending was as satisfying as the rest of the book. I enjoyed the story, especially as someone who suffers from anxiety, though not as severely as Jade does. I loved the way Caletti gradually showed us Jade's growth without Jade even noticing it. I liked the characters, even when they made me sad. I liked that when we first find out Sebastian's secret, it's so cliche, but then it turns into something completely different. For most authors, this book would've been a stretch from reality, even though the setting is realistic. but Caletti manages to avoid this, probably because her writing and characters are so strong. I just wish the ending was more complete, or she writes a sequel, because I felt something was missing from an otherwise good book.
    • 4/5
      Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti is a book about a girl (Jade) stuggling with... well, not a normal teenage life. She lives practically on a zoo, and loves elephants. She even gets a part time job helping to care for the elephants. She meets this guy (Sebastian) who she falls in love with. She even stalks him. Like, extream level stalking. She veven uses the security cameras to watch him and his SON. She's so desperate, but trys to act cool about it. Then, there's her parents crisis. They want to get divorced. On top of all that, her brother and her dad do some arguing about sports. Jade's dad wants her brother, Oliver to play every sport under the sun. But he hates sports and wants nothing to do with them. The only thing he wants to do is get straight A+s, not play sports. Then again, he's ten years old. I rate this book with 3.5 stars. It's a very abnormal life of this teenager, I don't think anyone could relate to her. Isn't that what books are supposed to do, at least a little bit?
    • 4/5
      I liked this book a lot. The characters were very relatable and well-developed. It reminded me of Sarah Dessen's writing style in the best way and I would recommend this book to anybody who is a fan of hers.
    • 5/5
      Jade likes watching the elephants at the zoo - they help her feel calm. When she isn't there in person, she watches them on the zoo webcam. She discovers she isn't the only one who loves elephants - on the webcam she often sees a boy there with a baby. She eventually meets Sebastian and his son Bo and is attracted to him. But something doesn't feel quite right . . .This is a lovely, gentle story about first love and growing up. It also touches on anxiety disorder, changing friendships and parents separating. It would suit girls form 13 up.
    • 3/5
      I loved Ms. Deb Caletti. Her books are always written with great emphasis on life changing moments. Her characters have flaws that I can always relate to. One thing I enjoyed about this book are the great characters that Ms. Caletti molded for her readers. These characters were flawed from the start, looking for a way out. I adored that they didn't judge but wanted to be loved. That they can put aside all of the past and look forward to the future.I loved the story line as well. As the reader, you learn dark secrets about Sebastian and who he really is. I have to admit that this is a great element to the story that I enjoyed. Lies on top of lies, the reader is branded to think something, but learns something completely different. Amazing!The love interest in this story really captured my heart. I felt for Sebastian and instantly love this guy. He is not the bad guy he is made out to be and only did what he thought best. I am totally on his side. I like that Jade didn't judge him as well. Her heart is genuine and she cared for him like no other. I also liked that even with her panic disorder, she didn't panic for some stupid reason, but panic for him. She cared for someone else entirely. And that amazed me!This is a great story of doing what is right. Even when the circumstance point in other directions, you have to see the whole picture first. Ms. Caletti wrote an amazing story with great characters.
    • 4/5
      But the one thing my illness did make me realize is how necessary it is to ignore the dangers of living in order to live. And how much trouble you can get into if you can't. We all have to get up every morning and go outside and pretend we aren't going to die... We concentrate on having little thoughts so we don't have BIG THOUGHTS. It's like those days when you've got a really bad pimple but you still have to go to school. You've got to convince yourself it's not so bad just so you can leave the house and actually talk to people face to face. You've got to ignore the one big truth -- life is fatal. Jade DeLuna never knows when she's going to have a panic attack. She's always on guard for for that tightening feeling in her chest that signifies that she might be about to lose control and humiliate herself. Jade's figured out a few ways to ward off the panic - lighting patron saint candles, picturing herself in a calm, barren desert, sucking on a cough drop, and watching the live webcam of the elephants in the zoo down the street. The routine of watching the elephants do what comes naturally soothes Jade's stresses away. Sometimes she can see the visitors to the elephants on the webcam, too, but none ever draw her attention until the day the young guy in a red jacket carrying a baby on his back catches her eye. Just seeing him on the webcam, Jade has an unmistakable sense that this stranger and the kid she assumes is his will somehow become a part of her life.After a half-hearted attempt or two to "accidentally" meet him, Jade pushes thoughts of him to the back of her head to focus on her new volunteer job taking care of the elephants. Getting to know the elephants and their keeper is a welcome break from the troubles that are riddling Jade's parents marriage, unwelcome additions to her group of friends, and her rapidly upcoming decision about what college to attend. Between all the chaos in her life and her new found relationship with the elephants, the guy in the red jacket is all but a memory until the day he shows up again. Just as she'd supposed, soon Sebastian and his son Bo are becoming the best things in her life, and she feels more at home with the pair and Sebastian's grandmother than she could ever hope to feel at home with her real family. Unfortunately, there's more to Sebastian's story than first meets the eye, leaving Jade to make some decisions she'd never imagined.Caletti has a great knack for voicing quirky first person narrators that are easy to relate to for girls both young and old. Jade has a compelling conversational voice that makes you feel like you've got a friend telling you a story. She makes it easy to see how the every day business of living can be downright terrifying if you think about it too much.Jade and Sebastian's love story is sweetly told starting with believable awkwardness and insecurity and evolving until they start to feel like home for each other. Caletti goes out of her way to emphasize the quirks and ordinarily mundane qualities that can make one person love another much more than words or looks. The portrayal of a teen dad who is in love with his young son and desperately wants to care for him no matter the sacrifice is refreshing. It seems the most natural thing in the world that when Jade begins to forget to worry about every little thing as she falls deeper in love with Sebastian and his family. What's especially interesting about Caletti's books is that, despite the fact that she writes beautiful, romantic, realistic love stories, she never leaves her main characters to be defined by their relationship. The love story opens doors, teaches lessons, and ends uncertainly, but the change in Jade never stops being the focus. Caletti leaves us all with the correct impression that girls are stronger than they know and more resilient in the face of hardship than even they would expect, and that's a lesson that's a pleasure to learn from The Nature of Jade.
    • 4/5
      This book taught me alot in the way of animal nature and stuff like that, but it was kind of an average "discovering yourself" teenage book. The characters were realistic, and Jade was a good narrator filled with humor and honesty. The one thing I did not like though was the poor sentence structure filled with one too many commas.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I think every young girl should read it. Jade had a really troubled but typical teenage life, yet she found refuge at the zoo with the elephants. I think it is ironic how she found the love of her life watching her "safe haven". I will definately read more of her books.
    • 4/5
      Jade is a girl with anxiety; not just any anxiety, but panic-inducing-disorder-variety anxiety. To calm herself down, one thing she likes to do is watch a webcam broadcast of the elephants at the zoo down the street from her house. One day, while watching this webcast, she sees a boy with a baby and instantly feels a connection. After volunteering to work with the elephants, she meets this boy, whose name is Sebastian, and they fall in love. But what would teen love be without angst? Sebastian is hiding a secret that will eventually force Jade to decide between the life she knows and the boy she has come to love.Aside from the love story, which is fairly unique and un-dramatic, this book also includes some great insights into animal behavior, parent-child and sibling relationships, and growing up in a society with increasing demands to achieve. Jade is a girl with her head on her shoulders, who has learned in many ways to be her own problem-solver in life. Her relationships with her family members seem authentic and provide an interesting backdrop to the story of her romance with Sebastian. This book is a great read for any young adult reader. It was a little slow at first, but once it caught on I was wrapped up in Jade’s world and hoping for a bright future for her. It also includes an interesting character named Damian, the elephant manager at the zoo, who teaches Jade all about the relationship between an elephant and its mahout, or caretaker. Abe, Jade’s hippy/cool psychologist, provides an interesting perspective in the story, and a voice of reason for Jade when she’s having a typical teen moment. Not a rapture-inducing page-turner, but a great read nonetheless.
    • 4/5
      I found this book a bit slow at the beginning, but it was easy to keep reading because Caletti does SUCH a great job of creating believable characters. She has an incredibly fresh way of describing their observations, and in this case, Jade, seems to have a keen insight into life. Due to the occasional use of profanity, I opted to donate this book to our local high school where I am sure it will be enjoyed. Jade often watches the elephants on the Internet from a zoo web cam. The zoo itself is not too far from her house. One day, she sees a fairly young attractive boy, Sebastian, who is at the zoo with a young toddler. Eventually, Jade intentionally meets Sebastian, and finds out the young child is his son, and that the mother died in childbirth. When Jade falls in love with Sebastian, her already complicated life gets a bit more intense. Especially when she learns the truth - that he is on the run from his son's mother, who didn't really die in childbirth.
    • 4/5
      Seventeen-year-old Jade DeLuna suffers from panic attacks/ Therapy and medication help, and so does watching the elephants at the local zoo. It is on the zoo webcam that she first sees Sebastian, a handsome boy with a 15-month-old son. Jade soon falls in love with him and becomes privy to a shocking secret. As Jade struggles with her relationship with Sebastian, she must also come to terms with her parents' deteriorating marriage, her friends drifting apart, and an A.P.-heavy course load.I enjoyed this book immensely, and I feel it is a fresh approach to the "teen parent" novel. Although Jade and Sebastian's relationship is a shade melodramatic, it feels authentic. My only quibble is with the presentation of Jade's mom and dad. It seems unlikely to me that Jade's mom wouldn't have been called up for her smothering behavior as a part of Jade's therapy, and Jade's dad is really nothing more than a cardboard cutout. But overall, this is an outstanding book.