Melina Marchetta

This is more an author review, actually. Melina Marchetta lives in Australia, and writes young adult fiction. I found Jellicoe Road on a website listing award-winning novels. While checking it out of the library, I picked up Saving Francesca, too.

I read Saving Francesca first, mainly because it's a fairly short book. The format is neat, almost like you're reading Francesca's diary. She's just begun a new school year at a historically all-boys school. The transition isn't easy for her, or the other thiry girls who are not welcome by the male students or the teachers. To make matters worse, Francesca's gregarious mother has suddenly stopped coming out of her room. Francesca has to learn to deal with her mother's clinical depression, as well as survive the turmoil at school and a major identity crisis.

Jellicoe Road also centers around a girl struggling to find her true self. Taylor was abandoned on the Jellicoe Road when she was ten, and attends a sort of frontier school at the edge of the bush. She is elected, much to her surprise, to be the leader of her school's underground troop of fighters, who skirmish with kids from the nearby village (Townies) and the military boys who camp nearby every summer (Cadets). Taylor begins to suspect her murky past is somehow tangled with a group of kids whose tragic lives also center around the Jellicoe Road.

Looking for Alibrandi was Marchetta's first novel, and the last I read. Maybe that's why I liked it the least. It's a good book, definitely, but I could tell how much her writing blossomed as she published more. This one is about a teenaged girl (are you seeing a pattern?) who has never known her father, and has been just fine with that. Suddenly, though, he is back in her life, much to the dislike of them both. The story flows out smoothly and realistcally, but I wasn't as drawn to the characters as in the first two books I read.

Melina Marchetta's books have a singular knack for starting as one thing, and ending up completely differently. I think Saving Francesca is the best example. Although they are set in Australia, the feelings and fears of the characters are universal. One thing that was a little strange was the difference in the seasons. There, February is hot.

These books will lift you up and break your heart. I loved them.