Review of Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Title: Saving Francesca
Author: Melina Marchetta
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Pages: 243
Source: Borrowed from the library
Rating: 5/5

From Goodreads:  Francesca is stuck at St. Sebastian's, a boys' school that pretends it's coed by giving the girls their own bathroom.  Her only female companions are an ultra-feminist, a rumored slut, and an an impossibly dorky accordion player.  The boys are no better, from Thomas who specializes in musical burping to Will, the perpetually frowning, smug moron that Francesca can't seem to stop thinking about. Then there's Francesca's mother, who always thinks she knows what's best for Francesca—until she is suddenly stricken with acute depression, leaving Francesca lost, alone, and without an inkling who she really is.  Simultaneously humorous, poignant, and impossible to put down, this is the story of a girl who must summon the strength to save her family, her social life and—hardest of all—herself.

Melina Marchetta does it again...her novels just blow me away.  This book was so amazing I'm not sure I have the words to describen just how good it was.  Let's just say I stayed up until 2:45am to finish this novel even though I had to be up 6am.  That is how good it was.

Marchetta tends to write about characters who are flawed.  They are not perfect, and thing don't always go right for them, but they are real.  So real in fact, that you're pulled right into their lives and start to develop feelings for them.  Francesca was that way for me.  I often found myself in tears as I read what she was going through.  I felt her anger and helplessness at her mother's disease and I wanted to be there for her, but I didn't have to be because she has the greatest group of friends in the world.  

While the novel starts out with Francesca not having any real friends, by the end she has this amazing group of such ecelctic people who really care about her.  They are so unique and wonderful that you'll definitely be a little jealous by the end.  Like Francesca, each one of her friends is a little "flawed" but together they make this brilliant group of people. 

The characters are really what make this story.  They are so well written that you'd never know they didn't truely exist.  I keep expecting to get on a bus and see these friends in the back all chatting away. 

This novel was heart-breaking on one page, and laugh-out-loud hilarious on the next.  Seriously give this book and try and you won't be sorry.