Saving Francesca: Poem and Review

Find on Goodreads

Goodreads Description: Francesca is stuck at St. Sebastian’s, a boys' school that's pretends it's coed by giving the girls their own bathroom.

  Her only female companions are an ultra-feminist, a rumored slut, and 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 of 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, hersocial life and—hardest of all—herself.

                                                                                                                                          

My emotions spun round

Round and

round and 

round

I smiled

cried

laughed 

weeped

grimaced

smirked

bawled

grinned

A Masterpiece

That's what Saving Francesca is.

Okay, that was my first "review poem". I want to start doing these regularly. Something unique to go with Counting in Bookcases. How did you like it?

As indicated by the poem above, I really enjoyed this book. Only a truly good book can evoke so much emotion. Really, I felt the whole time I was either laughing or flat-out bawling. 

Saving Francesca really pulls at your heartstrings. Ultimately, it is about a girl who loses the strong, leader-like mother she knows to acute depression. Francesca suddenly has no one to tell her who she is, or to give advice. 

Francesca is on her own to find friends. And finding good friends at "a school that pretend's it's coed by giving the girls their own bathroom" is kind of hard. Also, Francesca has family problems to figure out, including her aunt's wedding, her fathers guilt, and her grandmas stolen S biscuit recipe. 

The characters, and Francesca's voice are what makes this such a good novel. You have the funny characters, who are deeper than they seem. You have the opinionated characters, who take great care of their friends. You have characters looking for their personality, when it is right there all along, just hidden. You have the shy characters, sweet characters, eccentric characters.

And, meanwhile, Francesca is telling the story, with her voice that is so real it cracks open your heart. You love her sarcastic comments, scattered thoughts, fragile outlook, growing opinions, angry moods, and "journey to self discovery".

You will grow to love Francesca, Mia, Thomas, Tara, Justine, Siobhan, Will, and Luca. I strongly recommend you read this. It is not exciting or action filled, but it is filled with things that happen to someone everyday but people fail to realize what they are feeling. Marchetta strikes truth in this amazing novel. 

5/5 bookcases