Impulse
Steven Gould
Tor Books, 2013
Impulse is the third book in the Jumper series, and moves the tone a bit more towards young adult, although it is rather dark for that genre. It is best read after reading the first two books in the series, although there is a natural break between the preceding two novels and this one. This story takes place 16 years after the previous novel and brings in a new protagonist, so the largest concern in reading them out of order are the massive spoilers (I will, however, avoid most of those in this writeup).
Cent has lived her whole life in hiding. Her parents have the ability to teleport, and powerful and mysterious organizations want to control this power. The previous two books dealt with her parents fighting these battles, and they are determined that she will not have to live in fear they way they have. Their solution to this is to spend most of their time in the most remote parts of the world, popping back to civilization only to do some shopping or odd jobs (mostly disaster relief).
Then, one day, Cent almost falls and has a terrible accident... but instead of hitting the ground, she finds herself back in her bedroom. After not too much experimentation, she figures out how to teleport when and where she wants, and gives her parents an ultimatum: come out of hiding and let her go to high school, or she'll run off and do high school on her own.
The story alternates between Cent and her parents doing disaster relief around the world, and Cent adjusting to high-school. This being a Steven Gould book, of course there are sinister bad guys at the high school, and Cent finds herself the target of an especially vicious gang. She invents a few new teleportation tricks beyond what her parents can do, and a good part of the story involves finding out how this can be used and abused.
Overall, this is very much a continuation of the tone and content of the earlier books, just a bit more polished and updated for a world with ubiquitous cell phones and internet. I wouldn't recommend starting the series here, but if you've read the first two books, don't stop! This book (and the next) are, I think, slightly better written, more modern in tone, and keep the nerdy exploration of the superpower interesting and engaging.
The next book in the series is Exo, and will again feature Cent as the protagonist.
SFQ22