Saving Francesca

by Melina Marchetta

[ladygrey]

I honestly didn't expect to love Saving Francesca. I know it's [a:Melina Marchetta|47104|Melina Marchetta|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1277655889p2/47104.jpg] so it's going to be brilliant but I read so little contemporary fiction I wasn't sure I'd enjoy it. Also, there's a sense of play in reading books for me, a relaxed frivolity that's my version of fun. Reading Melina Marchetta isn't fun - it's good but you know it's going to require something from you as much as it gives you so much more than other books can hope to. It's Les Mis to their Newsies (and I like Newsies).

But the thing I loved in this book is Francesca. I loved the particular way in which she's a smart ass. I liked that her wit is dry and clever and she's numb and also bold. And above all I loved that she's honest; with the reader and therefore herself even if she's not always entirely honest with the people in her life. That honesty just made all of her struggles so beautiful.

And of course I loved the secondary characters, because this is Melina Marchetta and she always does well developed characters. Some of them reminded me of people from her other books - Francesca's friends were like the group of women in [b:Quintana of Charyn|10165761|Quintana of Charyn (Lumatere Chronicles, #3)|Melina Marchetta|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1331187719l/10165761._SY75_.jpg|15064476] who seem so unlikable at first but then turn out to be really brave and awesome only these girls were also very kind. And Jimmy was like Griggs from [b:On Jellico Road|1162022|On the Jellicoe Road|Melina Marchetta|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1212708945l/1162022._SY75_.jpg|6479100] in his own gruff but also gentle and really companionable way. And Thomas and Will - they're all really hard to like at first because they're so broken but that's what Melina Marchetta does so unbelievably well. She writes broken characters who are also really good and that goodness makes them impossible not to like. She reveals what's really beautiful about her characters in the midst of their brokenness.

The thing that blows me away though, is that Melina Marchetta manages all that in the most incomparable language. It's makes me laugh. And then I just wanted to underline half the book because it's full of lines that are so poignant and romantic they break your heart and lines that are so simple and so eloquent it doesn't seem possible that someone can write like that but she does.

I should have known she would blow me out of the water. I just wasn't ready for it.