Published by Knopf Books for Younger Readers
Published 6 May 2006
MOST OF MY friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn’t allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn’t bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you’ll sense there’s an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the Limitation Placers in my life.
Francesca battles her mother, Mia, constantly over what’s best for her. All Francesca wants is her old friends and her old school, but instead Mia sends her to St. Sebastian’s, an all-boys’ school that has just opened its doors to girls. Now Francesca’s surrounded by hundreds of boys, with only a few other girls for company. All of them weirdos—or worse.
Then one day, Mia is too depressed to get out of bed. One day turns into months, and as her family begins to fall apart, Francesca realizes that without her mother’s high spirits, she hardly knows who she is. But she doesn’t yet realize that she’s more like Mia than she thinks. With a little unlikely help from St. Sebastian’s, she just might be able to save her family, her friends, and—especially—herself.
Francesca battles her mother, Mia, constantly over what’s best for her. All Francesca wants is her old friends and her old school, but instead Mia sends her to St. Sebastian’s, an all-boys’ school that has just opened its doors to girls. Now Francesca’s surrounded by hundreds of boys, with only a few other girls for company. All of them weirdos—or worse.
Then one day, Mia is too depressed to get out of bed. One day turns into months, and as her family begins to fall apart, Francesca realizes that without her mother’s high spirits, she hardly knows who she is. But she doesn’t yet realize that she’s more like Mia than she thinks. With a little unlikely help from St. Sebastian’s, she just might be able to save her family, her friends, and—especially—herself.
Imagine being a teenager and being enrolled in a school formely known as "St Sebastians School for Boys", which has just started allowing female students. It sounds fun, right? wrong. All Francesca's friends are going to another school, and the only other girls in her school are either weird, old friends who she no longer talks to, crazy feminists or just plain slutty. Now, imagine your outgoing fun loving mum just won't get out of bed anymore, and your family are just ignoring it. Imagine starting to like an obnoxious prefect who has the most unfortunate name I think I ever heard, William Trombal. And here is the plot.
For Marchetta to make me fall in love with these characters when there is no major plotline to lull me in just shows what an extrordinary writer she is, The prose and characterisation were just amazing. This book is all about the characters, nothing could happen to them and you would still love them. They're not weird or have strange habits, they act and talk like normal teenagers. They are riddled with angst, they are comical in their naivety. Full of hysterical poignant moments, it made me wish I was a teenager again. You watch Francesca grow as she discovers new friends, re-discoveres old ones.
Saving Franscesca is just one of those books, I can't even describe it, it just is. And it is so bizarre that I feel this way, because basically, the book had very little in the form of a plot. Not much happens, and the book is 343 pages long. This book made me want to climb into the words and just stay there.
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