Ah Melina Marchetta. She has yet to let me down and I knew that enough to get through the first part of this book. Her early books need time and this one needed 127 pages.
At first I didn't like Josie much at all. She's kind of a brat and angry all the time. There were conversations that erupted into yelling matches and the words weren't mean or cruel so they didn't support the anger and there was no context around the dialog to explain why everyone was so angry and I didn't enjoy the irrational fighting all the time.
Then, page 127, I don't even remember what happened except I felt the story change and looked down at the page number. Josie was less and the story was more. There were still fights and she was sometimes irrational but they made sense. The anger, the frustration, there was more talking and explaining why and most of all listening to each other. It's a powerful story which is no surprise at all because it's Melina Marchetta. There's this delicate parallel between Josie and her mom and the choices her mom did make and Josie didn't make. There's this beautiful, earned, freedom in living apart from what other people say and think about you. And there's honest pain about ambition and settling and the disconnect between privledge and happiness. There's so much it's easy to see why it's such an acclaimed book. And it's honest in a way that resonates and says the things you wished more people said. Some of it culturally is removed from my American understanding but humanly it all makes perfect sense.
And once again, Melina Marchetta proves why she's worth sticking through the first hundred pages or so when she asks it of you.