"Why did I feel so grateful that people treated me well?"Sometimes you stumble upon a story that is just too much like yourself.This story is too much like myself.That is why I don't know if I will ever write a review. I hope I will, but right now doing it would feel like carving the heart out of my chest.'Am I making sense?''Weirdly enough, yes.'While I struggle with myself, please, please, please. Go read this book.---Okay, so I had a few hours to get my act together and, while I am still so v...

4.5 stars Just ask how I'm feeling, I want to say. Just ask and I may tell you.But no one does. Chantal read a YA contemporary? And she liked it?? *shocked face*Melina Marchetta has become my queen of contemporary. First On the Jellicoe Road and now Saving Francesca. The woman can do no wrong. I still can’t fathom how she managed to make me this in love with characters in less than 250 pages. On the Jellicoe Road has a significantly higher rating on GR compared to Saving Francesca and I can se...

My thoughts after reread : My WHAT? My THOUGHTS? Are you kidding me? Do I look like I'm able to think? Francesca. Tara. Will. Jimmy. Luca. Mia. Bob the builder. Tom. You ruined me for life, you know that? Dysfunctional. Hysterical. Bastards. Endearing. Unforgettable. Real.➡ I didn't know anything about how fantastic realistic fiction could be before meeting these characters a year ago. Saving Francesca is so... clever - nothing feels forced, and it becomes magical when I feel as if everythin...

:::4 Stars:::*Wipes tears* This author gets me every time.Okay, twice. She got me twice. I’ve read two of her books. But that only means there’s more of her brilliance to enjoy...Oh, yeahhh Saving Francesca is a very touching and gentle read that centers not only on common themes such as family, friendship, and love—but thoroughly explores the heartaches of depression and the toll it can take on a family as a whole. I’ve read many books where the narrator/main protagonist suffers a mental dis...

There is this cute, bouncing red tomato bopping around GoodReads singing the praises of Melina Marchetta.I'll admit that I ignored the Tomato because my therapist said that it wasn't normal for fruit to recommend books to people. I accepted this advice because I'd already read Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi and I hadn't enjoyed it.I couldn't understand people's fascination with it, actually. Nobody in my class at school liked Looking for Alibrandi and I thought for awhile that maybe it was be...

"i was born seventeen years ago," i tell him. "do you think people have noticed that i'm around?""i notice when you're not. does that count?"seriously - that is barf-in-your-mouth sweet (in a good way) and part of why i love this marchetta gal. she writes boys you wish you had dated when you were sixteen. not now - now i would see through a line like that in a heartbeat, but at sixteen? hook line and sinker, man. put the apple schnapps away,boy, you will not be needing it tonight.(full disclosur...

Between the beautiful Edward Cullens and the sexy Salvatore brothers of today's young adult literature, it's easy to see why teenage girls think they're doing something wrong when all they get is Rob with the mullet who likes to fart and swear in the classroom. That's what I like so much about this book... it's not a story of beautiful, unrealistic people or the abnormally brave and self-sacrificing. This is the most honest depiction of school, boys and family for a teenager that I have ever rea...

Updated 6/29/2016Nobody writes friendships and dialogue quite like Melina Marchetta.Weird attitude towards anti-depressants though. Updated 8/16/12So, two years later after my original reading of Saving Francesca and I am removing a star. I've been claiming for a long time that this novel was my favorite by Marchetta, but it's not true any more. Let's see where my rereading of the entire Marchetta catalog leads me, however at this point I am certain I now prefer her fantasies. Truly, her later n...

It's a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that's kept right next to my soul and Justine's spirit and Siobham's hope and Tara's passions. Because if I'm going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I'm going to need everything I've got to fight this disease that could be sleeping inside of me. After reading Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta I’m convinced that this author can write a 500 page book about the different brands of t...

This book came highly recommended and I have to admit I put off getting it from my library for quite awhile because I prefer stories where there are a) supernatural creatures ravaging a town, b) dead bodies and angst, or c) any combination of a & b. SAVING FRANCESCA, of course, has neither. But it turned out that it didn't matter. The winning characters in this novel, the story of Francesca, one of a handful of girls at a previously all-boys school, carry the novel all on their own, no dead ...