Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta

I sat here on my couch reading from 7 or 8 to now at 12am, and peed very infrequently (my bladder is sore), and none of my limbs shook impatiently and my eyes didn't wander and the outside noises didn't detract from the train ride through this book, where I start out as the only passenger, and then someone enters, and another someone, and another, and then another joins the others and you realize these new passengers are connected, even if they don't want to be at first, but the joy they feel in reaching an unexpected, breathtaking destination is utterly mutual, even intimate. And I got to be part of it, all of it, every bit. So much apart of it, in fact, that I can tell you - without referring back to the book - that Jimmy is a fantasy buff who likes to smoke heavily and Thomas is in love with his discman though he listens to everyone's conversations and Siobhan is looking for "The One" in every boy she shags but hates the name-calling and Tara more than protests just to protest because she owns the word 'passion' and Justine is wicked at the accordion piano and longs for the company of Tuba Guy even though they've never spoken and Luca named Pinocchio and Francesca named Luca before she opted for conformity and silence and blending and all the things that make you regret you didn't just come out with who you were the whole way through. The entire time, show-off or no. 

You stop feeling lonely when you read books like these. You can't even remember anything beyond the tears you're shedding, the characters you're committing to memory, the writing that speaks to many of the thoughts you've had but could never articulate before. This book is the reason why I read, why I jump into another book after I've finished the last. I am Siobhan jumping from affairs, on the prowl for that special something that'll give meaning to even a moment amidst all the dull and dreary bits. Saving Francesca is about so much I don't know that you could really consider this a piece of fiction but a steep pocket Marchetta keeps filling with pieces of a life that make a whole, that create something more real than lives people actually lead. So real, in fact, that you've just got to hope you get that lucky. I know I am. I know that this book gave me hope for better days ahead, where I have a chance at finding four girls and two boys (plus many more, in truth) who understand, one boy I really love, one family that can stay complete even when everything falls apart, and so much more. There can only be good tears, good memories, good fears and joys in a book like that, like this, like Saving Francesca, a book that gives you enough thought, fight, hope, and love to save yourself as heroically as Frankie the Brave. 

Be Francesca-brave. Read this book. Change your life, even for a few hours. You'll find you have still more to learn, about yourself, others, and the world you think you live in every day.

Best Book Read in 2014