I really wish I liked this more, as I'm such a big fan of Melina Marchetta's other work. And Josie was a real, honest, and irrational teenager in so many ways that made me giggle. I'm certainly sympathetic to being 17 and thinking you know everything, only to find out you don't know anything. (It is a sign that I'm growing older that I'm relating more to adults in the novel? I'm only 23, and yet I completely understood Josie's mother whenever they fought). I also greatly enjoyed the dynamic of the inter generational Alibrandi women.

However, it didn't quite click with me. There was so much about the culture of the characters that didn't make sense to me and didn't allow me to understand it. I'm a big fan of how Marchetta slowly reveals information to the narrator (this was done stunningly with the grandmother's history), but I felt so on the outside of understanding Josie's culture. This could be because my great-great grandparents were Italian immigrants to America, and I'm very far removed from experiencing the culture shock of immigrants vs. "natives" (in quotes because clearly the white Australians aren't natives, just like white Americans). Yet SAVING FRANCESCA deals a lot with Australian-Italian culture, and I connected much easier to that book. I don't think just because I have a different cultural history to the characters means that I can't connect with the story, and ultimately that's the failure of this novel for me.

This is Marchetta's first book, but I'm reading it after already loving her later work. I expected it to live up to the Lumatere Chronicles and ON THE JELLICOE ROAD (one of the best YA books ever written), and it doesn't. And that isn't this book's fault. Really, I'm grateful to this book, because it let Marchetta grow as a writer, and gave me some of my favorite books of all time.

Lastly, I'm really happy Josie didn't end up with Jacob Coote. He was pretty terrible (as was she) and I like seeing a YA romance that isn't meant to be forever. Those are so stunningly rare.