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A review by krish_
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
5.0
I have never come across an author whose work I swore by. I've read many great pieces of literature but they stand alone, they are individual. A writer's first novel might leave me uninspired but his second novel might break my heart. Its like music, not every song by a musician is going to be a hit. Until Melina Marchetta. I wasn't even worried when I picked up Looking for Alibrandi because I knew it would be good. And it was. I feel like all of her books are on par with each other, except for On The Jellicoe Road which is just too exceptional to be regarded as anything less than an award-winning novel. I had a hard time deciding where Alibrandi fell on my "Marchetta Scale." Above Saving Francesca? Below The Piper's Son? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And so I decided it shall be thus:
1) On The Jellicoe Road
2.5) Looking for Alibrandi
2) The Piper's Son
3.5) Saving Francesca
3) The as of yet unread but soon will be Finnikin of the Rock & any other book that shall in the future be published under her name.
4) The rest of YA literature
I don't think I'm even exaggerating.
Her characters and their emotions and situations are so real. No, scratch that. They are so complete in thought and in words that you can't help but be pulled in. I'm gushing and making little sense. This review will not be insightful nor helpful nor original but here I go...
Marchetta can be accused of being somewhat formulaic. Its always a young adult facing an identity crisis. Its always about family and belonging, whether its within society or a smaller community. Joesphine Alibrandi doesn't know who she is or how to even classify herself. Is she Italian or Australian? Both? And if so, how? I adored Marchetta's deconstruction of immigration and culture shock, integration and resistance. How do you reconcile the customs you were born into and the ones you have to grow up with? How do you live with such a distinction between the life you have inside the walls of your home and the great big world you walk out into?
Josie is seventeen and she's selfish, impulsive, obnoxious and passionate. This story is how she finally figures out that the only person whose opinion should truly ever matter is our own. We label ourselves, no one else. I moved to Canada when I was seven. I've been here longer than I haven't. The culture I brought with me is still a very big part of my life. It always will be. I grew up like Josie. I was amongst my peers during the day. I went to school with them, I played with them, I had sleepovers with them but I was different. Their homes, when I visited, were different. Its like living in two worlds. Outside I was Canadian, inside I was someone else. Fortunately, unlike Josie, I had never experienced racism or any form of prejudice and discrimination. When I was young, kids talked of course but never anything that has left scarring, emotional or otherwise.
I did struggle however because any feeling of inferiority I had was put upon by my own self. I made myself feel and think I was less because I wasn't like my Canadian schoolmates. They had it easier, I thought, less complicated. They had the same rules coming in and out of their homes. But I played by different standards. My friends saw me one way and my family another. And that gets hard...to have to fill different roles between friends and family. Its the transitioning that made it frustrating. I felt for Josie because I had gone through it myself. I've had people argue that its easier on children when moving into a foreign country. Why, exactly? Because kids don't understand? Because kids just play and have no time to think? Because nothing we do is of any real urgency so it has less weight? As an adult you have full comprehension of the situation. As a child, you have no idea what the fuck is going on. Why your lunch is suddenly weird and smelly compared to your friend's sandwich. Why you're not allowed to stay out after school. Why your parents have to have their address, phone number and speak to their mom or dad just for one night's sleepover. Why you didn't spend as much money on their birthday gift as the others.
And then there's the tug-of-war I love my culture, I hate my culture. Josie was suffocated by of all the restrictions put upon her because some country that looks like a boot nine thousand miles away lived by the same rules. Her old-fashioned grandmother enforced on her old-fashioned principles. I remember wanting desperately for my parents to understand that "the other kids were doing it so its alright" or that "but that's not how they do it here." All I ever got was a stern tone and the shake of their heads. Josie felt like a foreigner, an alien in a country she was born in. I can't imagine if she had been like me, born in one place and having to assimilate in another. I felt like a tourist for a long time. Going to the mall and taking pictures to send to relatives back home, bringing our own snacks to the amusement park while other families ate in the restaurants. Vain, trivial things really but it meant the end of the world to me then. It took forever until I finally felt like I had the right to be here.
That is what I got most out of Marchetta's novel. Her writing is so convincing and dead on that the more I read the more memories kept creeping out to have a look. The more memories I remembered, the more I loved the book. A lesser writer wouldn't have affected me as deeply. My childhood was not as tragically conflicted as this makes it sound. Over all I'm really lucky that I live in one of the most diverse cities in the world and with that comes a tolerance that obviously isn't as routine in other places. I still judge some of the fundamentals I discover in both of my cultures but that's the point. We're not one or the other. We're a hybrid. We're a compromise and we have more freedom in choices of values and traditions because we have two to choose from.
Looking for Alibrandi is an excellent book. Be prepared to meet a loud, spirited, ever confused and ever brazen young girl. She's flawed but so is every character Marchetta introduces us to. Its the only human thing, to be imperfect. The key is how she compels us nonetheless to love and root for them. I had a harder time warming up to Josie than any character so far, only because she was such a teenager...know what I mean? Marchetta's voice is just as succulently reflective as in her other books, but you do sense her writing developing deeper and broader breadth (most apparently in Jellicoe Road). This isn't her best written book, but sometimes technicality is cancelled out by emotional ties.
There is so much more I want to talk about. But I'm sure by now I'm the only one left in the room, so having no desire to be speaking here to myself, I'll have just a few more words. Josie and her relationship with her mother and grandmother is sweet and strained. I didn't always like the way she treated them but what's growing up all about if you don't have any qualities to improve? The love story is worth fawning over. I especially love the end - you'll have to read why. And yes, yet another pathetic crush on a fictional character. Finally her relationship with her father, while not totally uncommon, is still unconventionally thought out that I at first couldn't be persuaded to buy it, until I did. I'll buy anything Marchetta sells me.
I didn't plan on this review to be so long. I figured I'd said enough on my review for Jellicoe Road but I can't seem to shut up. Marchetta demands recognition.
1) On The Jellicoe Road
2.5) Looking for Alibrandi
2) The Piper's Son
3.5) Saving Francesca
3) The as of yet unread but soon will be Finnikin of the Rock & any other book that shall in the future be published under her name.
4) The rest of YA literature
I don't think I'm even exaggerating.
Her characters and their emotions and situations are so real. No, scratch that. They are so complete in thought and in words that you can't help but be pulled in. I'm gushing and making little sense. This review will not be insightful nor helpful nor original but here I go...
Marchetta can be accused of being somewhat formulaic. Its always a young adult facing an identity crisis. Its always about family and belonging, whether its within society or a smaller community. Joesphine Alibrandi doesn't know who she is or how to even classify herself. Is she Italian or Australian? Both? And if so, how? I adored Marchetta's deconstruction of immigration and culture shock, integration and resistance. How do you reconcile the customs you were born into and the ones you have to grow up with? How do you live with such a distinction between the life you have inside the walls of your home and the great big world you walk out into?
Josie is seventeen and she's selfish, impulsive, obnoxious and passionate. This story is how she finally figures out that the only person whose opinion should truly ever matter is our own. We label ourselves, no one else. I moved to Canada when I was seven. I've been here longer than I haven't. The culture I brought with me is still a very big part of my life. It always will be. I grew up like Josie. I was amongst my peers during the day. I went to school with them, I played with them, I had sleepovers with them but I was different. Their homes, when I visited, were different. Its like living in two worlds. Outside I was Canadian, inside I was someone else. Fortunately, unlike Josie, I had never experienced racism or any form of prejudice and discrimination. When I was young, kids talked of course but never anything that has left scarring, emotional or otherwise.
I did struggle however because any feeling of inferiority I had was put upon by my own self. I made myself feel and think I was less because I wasn't like my Canadian schoolmates. They had it easier, I thought, less complicated. They had the same rules coming in and out of their homes. But I played by different standards. My friends saw me one way and my family another. And that gets hard...to have to fill different roles between friends and family. Its the transitioning that made it frustrating. I felt for Josie because I had gone through it myself. I've had people argue that its easier on children when moving into a foreign country. Why, exactly? Because kids don't understand? Because kids just play and have no time to think? Because nothing we do is of any real urgency so it has less weight? As an adult you have full comprehension of the situation. As a child, you have no idea what the fuck is going on. Why your lunch is suddenly weird and smelly compared to your friend's sandwich. Why you're not allowed to stay out after school. Why your parents have to have their address, phone number and speak to their mom or dad just for one night's sleepover. Why you didn't spend as much money on their birthday gift as the others.
And then there's the tug-of-war I love my culture, I hate my culture. Josie was suffocated by of all the restrictions put upon her because some country that looks like a boot nine thousand miles away lived by the same rules. Her old-fashioned grandmother enforced on her old-fashioned principles. I remember wanting desperately for my parents to understand that "the other kids were doing it so its alright" or that "but that's not how they do it here." All I ever got was a stern tone and the shake of their heads. Josie felt like a foreigner, an alien in a country she was born in. I can't imagine if she had been like me, born in one place and having to assimilate in another. I felt like a tourist for a long time. Going to the mall and taking pictures to send to relatives back home, bringing our own snacks to the amusement park while other families ate in the restaurants. Vain, trivial things really but it meant the end of the world to me then. It took forever until I finally felt like I had the right to be here.
That is what I got most out of Marchetta's novel. Her writing is so convincing and dead on that the more I read the more memories kept creeping out to have a look. The more memories I remembered, the more I loved the book. A lesser writer wouldn't have affected me as deeply. My childhood was not as tragically conflicted as this makes it sound. Over all I'm really lucky that I live in one of the most diverse cities in the world and with that comes a tolerance that obviously isn't as routine in other places. I still judge some of the fundamentals I discover in both of my cultures but that's the point. We're not one or the other. We're a hybrid. We're a compromise and we have more freedom in choices of values and traditions because we have two to choose from.
Looking for Alibrandi is an excellent book. Be prepared to meet a loud, spirited, ever confused and ever brazen young girl. She's flawed but so is every character Marchetta introduces us to. Its the only human thing, to be imperfect. The key is how she compels us nonetheless to love and root for them. I had a harder time warming up to Josie than any character so far, only because she was such a teenager...know what I mean? Marchetta's voice is just as succulently reflective as in her other books, but you do sense her writing developing deeper and broader breadth (most apparently in Jellicoe Road). This isn't her best written book, but sometimes technicality is cancelled out by emotional ties.
There is so much more I want to talk about. But I'm sure by now I'm the only one left in the room, so having no desire to be speaking here to myself, I'll have just a few more words. Josie and her relationship with her mother and grandmother is sweet and strained. I didn't always like the way she treated them but what's growing up all about if you don't have any qualities to improve? The love story is worth fawning over. I especially love the end - you'll have to read why. And yes, yet another pathetic crush on a fictional character. Finally her relationship with her father, while not totally uncommon, is still unconventionally thought out that I at first couldn't be persuaded to buy it, until I did. I'll buy anything Marchetta sells me.
I didn't plan on this review to be so long. I figured I'd said enough on my review for Jellicoe Road but I can't seem to shut up. Marchetta demands recognition.