Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Nostalgic
There's a ton of longing for the past in this story, and it dips into just about every struggle the characters of Jellicoe Road have. Taylor may not have a lot of happy memories from her childhood, but she nonetheless looks back on the few positive ones she has and misses the brief moment of security she experienced when she was young. "See, I remember love," she tells us as she reflects on being with Hannah and Jude as a small child. "That's what people don't understand" (4.30).
But the nostalgia party doesn't stop with Taylor. Think about Webb's favorite song, the one he plays for Taylor in her dreams and carves the lyrics of into the Prayer Tree. While it isn't explicitly named in the book, the song, "Flame Trees," by Australian rock band Cold Chisel, is about a guy returning to his hometown after many years and experiencing a flood of emotions related to lost friends and memories. It's no accident that Webb's favorite line is the song's soaring bridge:
"Do you remember nothing stopped us on the field in our day?" (9.30)
If that doesn't reek of nostalgia, we don't know what does. Maybe the song didn't carry that kind of loaded meaning for the original five back in the day, but it probably comes close to depicting Hannah and Jude's thoughts as they recall the past while living in Jellicoe. Either way, all the book's major characters are trying in some way to get back to the past, whether it's through Hannah writing her book, Jude's mission to protect Taylor from a distance, or Taylor's desire to give shape to her background.