I feel like I should like this book more than I do, maybe I'm missing something, maybe it's the writing style, maybe it's because I don't relate well to the characters, I'm not sure.
This is the second book I've read by Melina Marchetta. Looking for Alibrandi was on my high school required reading list and I thought coming back to her writing 10 years on and not being required to read this I might have changed feelings but both books have left me feeling pretty meh.

Small pet peeve - there is no way a primary school would do The Sound of Music as it's musical and no way that a gr 4 would be cast as the Captain and be singing Edelweiss as a solo. (However this is a very small detail!! :P ) ( )

Another about Italians. *bemused smile*
I love this one. Complex and emotional.
Wonderfully written. Superbly drawn out.

FINAL VERDICT: READ, SPREAD THE LOVE ( )

This is one of my new favorite books. It is laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly sad. I went from weeping to laughing to laughing and weeping at the same time. Francesca is going to a new school that was formerly all boys, St. Sebastian's. She is finding her way in the new school with her 10-year-old brother as well as dealing with her mother's acute depression. She misses her friends from her old school, St. Stella's, but wonders if they miss her and begins to discover things about herself as she makes new friends and rediscovers some old acquaintances. Her new friends include some of the Sebastian boys who resent the girls' presence at first. The resolution is a little too neat, but the book is a page turner nevertheless. ( )

This book is beautiful.

I don't ever recall myself describing a book as beautiful, but this one surely fits the adjective to a T.

A wonderful coming-of-age story casting the realest characters I've ever read about. It was very hard to be part of that group of people so flawed, so different from one another with nothing in common but they came together forming a strange bond and the strongest friendship.

I advise you to listen to the audiobook. It transforms completely the reading experience with the amazing voice and the aussie accent. Unforgettable. ( )

This was one of my favorite books in middle school and high school. It is not “high class literature” but it does a good job of teaching life lessons while fitting into the young adult genre. It is the story of a high schooler, Francesca, who tries to navigate life as her mother suffers a major depressive episode. It is terrifying in how raw it is, and the relationships and friendships displayed in the novel. One of the few books that I really believe gave a deeper understanding of what it means to be a friend and a daughter. ( )