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The Piper's Son
Award-winning author Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel Saving Francesca—but five years have passed, and now it's Thomas Mackee who needs saving.
After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is either?
An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper's Son redefines what it means to go home again.
The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family's hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.
After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can't forget. Shooting for oblivion, he's hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom's in no shape to mend what's broken. But what if no one else is either?
An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper's Son redefines what it means to go home again.
The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family's hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.
336 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2010
About the author
Melina Marchetta
30 books7,587 followersMelina Marchetta was born in Sydney Australia. Her first novel, Looking For Alibrandi was awarded the Children's Book Council of Australia award in 1993 and her second novel, Saving Francesca won the same award in 2004. Looking For Alibrandi was made into a major film in 2000 and won the Australian Film Institute Award for best Film and best adapted screen play, also written by the author. On the Jellicoe Road was released in 2006 and won the US Printz Medal in 2009 for excellence in YA literature. This was followed up by Finnikin of the Rock in 2008 which won the Aurealis Award for YA fantasy, The Piper's Son in 2010 which was shortlisted for the Qld Premier's Lit Award, NSW Premier's Lit Award, Prime Minister's Literary Awards, CBC awards and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her follow up to Finnikin, Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn were released in 2012 and 2013. Her latest novel Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil is an adult crime novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,486 reviews
June 29, 2018
utterly destroyed.
all i did while reading this book is cry. in the middle of penn station for hours. in the receiving room at work. in the subway. at home. tears. everywhere. i am going to have to buy the copy i borrowed from work because my tears got on a couple of pages.
it is unprecedented.
and it doesn't hurt that i have been blue for a couple of months now, but it also doesn't help that this woman knows how punch you in the heart in a variety of ways with stealth and precision.
because it's not that bad things happen to the characters. please - as a thomas hardy veteran, you can't get me that way. and it's not a nicholas sparks teenagers kissing in the rain kind of awwwww crying. i am not that way inclined.
it's the little things. details. a slow build where you become sewn to the characters - conjoined at their hearts and then with a single line of uncommonly pure emotional vérité she will just slice at those stitches and cast you adrift and you won't even see it coming. she's like an emotion-ninja. or a sniper. she's something ferocious and beautiful that is coming to get you.
and again marchetta is exploding the scope of the YA novel. when one of the two main characters is a woman in her forties experiencing her first pregnancy with a painful baby-daddy situation and giant bloody handfuls of family drama swirling all over, i just wonder what the teens are going to make of it. these aren't relatable high-school relationships; there are layers of betrayal and heartbreak and years of built-up hopes and letdowns crudding up the lives of these characters. and it's not that teens can't understand the emotions, it just strange to me to keep writing these books that have such a broad market and audience and publishing them as teen fiction, thus cutting the audience in half.
the other central character is nineteen; the nephew of the pregnant woman, with his own woes, and the family woes the two of them share. his concerns are more universal than a potentially single-mom late-in-fertility pregnancy situation, but they are still very complicated and more than your run of the mill teen angst.
it is gutting.
and it didn't start out that way. i had to reread the first three pages a few times because it is a confusing mass of characters' relationships to each other, like in the bible. eventually i gave up and said, "i'm sure this will make more sense as the story progresses, à la jellicoe road." and it did. it does. but for awhile, i was floundering and wondering "who are these people?? i thought reading saving francesca first would be all i needed to understand this one!!"
but pssst - i liked this one a lot more than saving francesca. i really liked s.f., it had a million moments where i felt touched or saddened or more human somehow, but this one lives up to the skill and promise of jellicoe road which is jaw-droppingly good stuff. this one has some teensy things that i didn't love (all of the original song lyrics, for example, really made my skin crawl) but there is such a strength and a confidence to her writing, and the balls on her to talk politics - australian politics, to an audience that, in america at least, is going to be utterly perplexed. (quick: american teens - you have twenty seconds to tell me where east timor is)
for all of it, i recommend her to you. but particularly for what she does best - the long fuse, the slow burn, and then not one big firecracker at the end, but a string of small explosions in the heart that eventually wear you down into a teary-eyed blob of emotional helplessness. bitch.
she owns me now.
so can i stop crying now?
please?
come to my blog!
all i did while reading this book is cry. in the middle of penn station for hours. in the receiving room at work. in the subway. at home. tears. everywhere. i am going to have to buy the copy i borrowed from work because my tears got on a couple of pages.
it is unprecedented.
and it doesn't hurt that i have been blue for a couple of months now, but it also doesn't help that this woman knows how punch you in the heart in a variety of ways with stealth and precision.
because it's not that bad things happen to the characters. please - as a thomas hardy veteran, you can't get me that way. and it's not a nicholas sparks teenagers kissing in the rain kind of awwwww crying. i am not that way inclined.
it's the little things. details. a slow build where you become sewn to the characters - conjoined at their hearts and then with a single line of uncommonly pure emotional vérité she will just slice at those stitches and cast you adrift and you won't even see it coming. she's like an emotion-ninja. or a sniper. she's something ferocious and beautiful that is coming to get you.
and again marchetta is exploding the scope of the YA novel. when one of the two main characters is a woman in her forties experiencing her first pregnancy with a painful baby-daddy situation and giant bloody handfuls of family drama swirling all over, i just wonder what the teens are going to make of it. these aren't relatable high-school relationships; there are layers of betrayal and heartbreak and years of built-up hopes and letdowns crudding up the lives of these characters. and it's not that teens can't understand the emotions, it just strange to me to keep writing these books that have such a broad market and audience and publishing them as teen fiction, thus cutting the audience in half.
the other central character is nineteen; the nephew of the pregnant woman, with his own woes, and the family woes the two of them share. his concerns are more universal than a potentially single-mom late-in-fertility pregnancy situation, but they are still very complicated and more than your run of the mill teen angst.
it is gutting.
and it didn't start out that way. i had to reread the first three pages a few times because it is a confusing mass of characters' relationships to each other, like in the bible. eventually i gave up and said, "i'm sure this will make more sense as the story progresses, à la jellicoe road." and it did. it does. but for awhile, i was floundering and wondering "who are these people?? i thought reading saving francesca first would be all i needed to understand this one!!"
but pssst - i liked this one a lot more than saving francesca. i really liked s.f., it had a million moments where i felt touched or saddened or more human somehow, but this one lives up to the skill and promise of jellicoe road which is jaw-droppingly good stuff. this one has some teensy things that i didn't love (all of the original song lyrics, for example, really made my skin crawl) but there is such a strength and a confidence to her writing, and the balls on her to talk politics - australian politics, to an audience that, in america at least, is going to be utterly perplexed. (quick: american teens - you have twenty seconds to tell me where east timor is)
for all of it, i recommend her to you. but particularly for what she does best - the long fuse, the slow burn, and then not one big firecracker at the end, but a string of small explosions in the heart that eventually wear you down into a teary-eyed blob of emotional helplessness. bitch.
she owns me now.
so can i stop crying now?
please?
come to my blog!
July 8, 2021
not a long review because this story is less about what i liked/disliked and more about how it made me feel.
it makes me mourn friendships that have been lost and grateful for ones that last. its makes want to have patience for family members i dont get along with and hug those that i love. it makes me recognise that trials can be important lessons and some of the best things take a lot of effort.
this simple, understated story captures the depth of life and relationships in such an honest way. definitely a story to tug at your heartstrings.
↠ 5 stars
it makes me mourn friendships that have been lost and grateful for ones that last. its makes want to have patience for family members i dont get along with and hug those that i love. it makes me recognise that trials can be important lessons and some of the best things take a lot of effort.
this simple, understated story captures the depth of life and relationships in such an honest way. definitely a story to tug at your heartstrings.
↠ 5 stars
September 3, 2011
I want to put my arms around Tom Mackee and give him a huge hug. I have a soft spot for boys who behave badly but are hurting on the inside--and boy, does Tom behave badly. And boy, is he hurting.
The Piper's Son takes place five years after the events in Saving Francesca. Tom and Jimmy were my favorite characters from that book, so I was really happy to dive immediately into TPS right after finishing the previous novel. When we meet up with Tom again, he's gone through a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, and a lot of one-night stands. He's also lost his favorite uncle, he isn't speaking to either of his parents, and he's become estranged from his friends and the one girl he's always dreamed about. Tom's now staying with his aunt Georgie, who is the other main character that we follow throughout the novel. Georgie is dealing with an unexpected pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend she thought was out of her life, and she finds herself in the untenable position of being torn between her pride and her heart. Both of them are very confused, very angry, and very, very sad.
I loved spending so much time getting to know the complex person that Tom turns out to be. What's brilliant about the book is that the author skillfully shows us his character through his relationships with his sister, his parents, and his friends, even though we know he's done a lot of crappy things to nearly all of them. I fell in love with the long letters he writes to Tara full of bravado and foolish hope, as well as his persistence in sending them, even though she doesn't write back. And I fell in love with Tom for the utter decency of character that we see revealed beneath all the ways that he lashes out at the people around him.
I was initially surprised at the unusual choice to spend so much time with Georgie, as the subject of adult women dealing with a tricky relationship isn't the usual YA fare. But I liked Georgie's story quite a lot, and I was impressed by how realistically her position is portrayed. Most of us can relate to knowing what is the right/easy/practical thing to do in theory, but we're held back by stubbornness and anger that are side the products of being terribly hurt. I will say that at first, it was a little confusing to be confronted by so many family members and characters and some of the story structure is a little confusing, but after awhile I became deeply immersed in where the author was taking us. I would loved to have also seen more about the elusive Jimmy, however; the few glimpses we got of him here and there were among the most touching moments in the book to me.
This is a complicated novel that touches on the themes of love, loss, joy, grief, integrity, hope, forgiveness, and redemption. Above all else, this is a story about family ties and how they lay the foundation for shaping what you are...but it's individual decisions that determine who you will be. I've thought a lot about whether teens today would really be interested in reading a book that is so very adult, and I don't know the answer to that--but I do hope they are. It's a book that deserves to be read.
But seriously, though. I really really really want a Jimmy book.
The Piper's Son takes place five years after the events in Saving Francesca. Tom and Jimmy were my favorite characters from that book, so I was really happy to dive immediately into TPS right after finishing the previous novel. When we meet up with Tom again, he's gone through a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, and a lot of one-night stands. He's also lost his favorite uncle, he isn't speaking to either of his parents, and he's become estranged from his friends and the one girl he's always dreamed about. Tom's now staying with his aunt Georgie, who is the other main character that we follow throughout the novel. Georgie is dealing with an unexpected pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend she thought was out of her life, and she finds herself in the untenable position of being torn between her pride and her heart. Both of them are very confused, very angry, and very, very sad.
I loved spending so much time getting to know the complex person that Tom turns out to be. What's brilliant about the book is that the author skillfully shows us his character through his relationships with his sister, his parents, and his friends, even though we know he's done a lot of crappy things to nearly all of them. I fell in love with the long letters he writes to Tara full of bravado and foolish hope, as well as his persistence in sending them, even though she doesn't write back. And I fell in love with Tom for the utter decency of character that we see revealed beneath all the ways that he lashes out at the people around him.
I was initially surprised at the unusual choice to spend so much time with Georgie, as the subject of adult women dealing with a tricky relationship isn't the usual YA fare. But I liked Georgie's story quite a lot, and I was impressed by how realistically her position is portrayed. Most of us can relate to knowing what is the right/easy/practical thing to do in theory, but we're held back by stubbornness and anger that are side the products of being terribly hurt. I will say that at first, it was a little confusing to be confronted by so many family members and characters and some of the story structure is a little confusing, but after awhile I became deeply immersed in where the author was taking us. I would loved to have also seen more about the elusive Jimmy, however; the few glimpses we got of him here and there were among the most touching moments in the book to me.
This is a complicated novel that touches on the themes of love, loss, joy, grief, integrity, hope, forgiveness, and redemption. Above all else, this is a story about family ties and how they lay the foundation for shaping what you are...but it's individual decisions that determine who you will be. I've thought a lot about whether teens today would really be interested in reading a book that is so very adult, and I don't know the answer to that--but I do hope they are. It's a book that deserves to be read.
But seriously, though. I really really really want a Jimmy book.
August 12, 2018
5 Stars, because an honest and gentle plot is sadly underrated.
This story was a humbling journey, but not just one. It was several little emotional journeys all leading to the same outcome: Me in tears.
Not exactly sad tears.
Although they weren't tears from being overcome by happiness, either.
Nope. This author hits with the power of her words and the unfiltered pictures she creates with them. No sudden deaths, no vicious betrayals, no obvious reasons to cry.
I guess my tears were ones of recognition; of being able to pinpoint the beauty in life throughout such a seemingly basic plot.
But this felt anything but basic, and everything basic — all at once.
I found myself crying for the family members who’ve never been able to express their love for one another, and then suddenly a single, subtle profession feels like one of the most significant things I’ve ever read.
I cried for the friendships that were lost, but never wiped away. Friendships like yours or mine…the ones we may take for granted as we fumble through the hardships of life, never realizing how much of an impact they have until everything else is stripped away.
I cried for the love stories entwined that were so far broken, a small step forward felt like miles worth of victory.
I cried when Thomas smiled simply because he’d made his friends laugh. Yeah, the author is that good. I cried because Tom smiled.
And not because I’m an unstable, emotional mess. (Although that diagnosis is still pending). But this author KNOWS how to create bottomless tragedy and then slowly build it up, offering only tiny crumbs of triumph at a time.
But it’s those little pieces that are everything.
Whether or not you decide to read Saving Francesca before this, I promise that you’ll feel like you're a part of this story from the start. There’s a bit of confusion at first regarding how the characters all relate, but it all comes together quickly.
Unlike many books I’ve read, this author doesn't dole out information in a list-like manner just because she’s introducing a plot. We have to work a little; pay close attention.
Marchetta’s characters have a way of appearing as though they’ve been alive long before opening the book, and that they'll somehow live on forever. They will draw you in close and they will pull tightly at your heartstrings. They’ll invite you into their lives and really make you feel like family—and that’s what I loved most.
Admittedly, going on about “crying” is not a conventional way for me to review…but this fact remains: It’s not often I find the *simple things* in life being appreciated and celebrated with such honest and raw conviction. And it’s these types of messages I remember most.
Book Stats:
▪ Genre/Category: Contemporary YA
▪ Romance: Broken but emotional and impactful
▪ Characters: Beyond lovable. Every single one of them.
▪ Plot: Focuses on family, friendships, love, Overcoming and finding happiness and peace.
▪ Writing: Astonishing. One of the best authors I’ve read
▪ POV: 3rd Person Perspective
▪ Cliffhanger: None. Can be read as standalone, although Saving Francesca precedes this.
This story was a humbling journey, but not just one. It was several little emotional journeys all leading to the same outcome: Me in tears.
Not exactly sad tears.
Although they weren't tears from being overcome by happiness, either.
Nope. This author hits with the power of her words and the unfiltered pictures she creates with them. No sudden deaths, no vicious betrayals, no obvious reasons to cry.
I guess my tears were ones of recognition; of being able to pinpoint the beauty in life throughout such a seemingly basic plot.
But this felt anything but basic, and everything basic — all at once.
I found myself crying for the family members who’ve never been able to express their love for one another, and then suddenly a single, subtle profession feels like one of the most significant things I’ve ever read.
I cried for the friendships that were lost, but never wiped away. Friendships like yours or mine…the ones we may take for granted as we fumble through the hardships of life, never realizing how much of an impact they have until everything else is stripped away.
I cried for the love stories entwined that were so far broken, a small step forward felt like miles worth of victory.
I cried when Thomas smiled simply because he’d made his friends laugh. Yeah, the author is that good. I cried because Tom smiled.
And not because I’m an unstable, emotional mess. (Although that diagnosis is still pending). But this author KNOWS how to create bottomless tragedy and then slowly build it up, offering only tiny crumbs of triumph at a time.
But it’s those little pieces that are everything.
Whether or not you decide to read Saving Francesca before this, I promise that you’ll feel like you're a part of this story from the start. There’s a bit of confusion at first regarding how the characters all relate, but it all comes together quickly.
Unlike many books I’ve read, this author doesn't dole out information in a list-like manner just because she’s introducing a plot. We have to work a little; pay close attention.
Marchetta’s characters have a way of appearing as though they’ve been alive long before opening the book, and that they'll somehow live on forever. They will draw you in close and they will pull tightly at your heartstrings. They’ll invite you into their lives and really make you feel like family—and that’s what I loved most.
Admittedly, going on about “crying” is not a conventional way for me to review…but this fact remains: It’s not often I find the *simple things* in life being appreciated and celebrated with such honest and raw conviction. And it’s these types of messages I remember most.
He comes from a broken home. The Mackees can’t be put back together again. There are too many pieces of them missing.
Book Stats:
▪ Genre/Category: Contemporary YA
▪ Romance: Broken but emotional and impactful
▪ Characters: Beyond lovable. Every single one of them.
▪ Plot: Focuses on family, friendships, love, Overcoming and finding happiness and peace.
▪ Writing: Astonishing. One of the best authors I’ve read
▪ POV: 3rd Person Perspective
▪ Cliffhanger: None. Can be read as standalone, although Saving Francesca precedes this.
July 21, 2016
Update /7/21/16
Didn't love as much as did originally, but the dialog is amazing, that's for sure.
Update 8/23/12
Well, Saving Francesca is not my favorite any more. For now I am sticking with the statement that I prefer her fantasies. Although it's hard to say how I feel about it after the next round of rereads. Otherwise, I pretty much stand by everything in the original review.
Original review
I don't know how Melina Marchetta does it - takes a story that seems so soap-operish and turns it into something so honest and real.
Let me tell you what The Piper's Son is all about. Tom Mackee is a complete mess. His beloved uncle died 2 years ago, his father is lost somewhere, undoubtedly drunk, his mother and sister left his dad and moved to another state. Tom has been for years and still is lost and lonely. He takes drugs, he abandoned his friends, he betrayed the girl he loved, he dropped out of uni. All is bad until he hits the rock bottom and is forced to move in with his aunt Georgie who has a whole set of problems of her own - she is pregnant by the man who hurt her in the worst possible way, she is full of grief and despair. How will these people pull themselves together?
In someone else's hands such a plot can turn into cheap melodrama. But somehow Marchetta makes it a truly great story of pain, grief, betrayal, forgiveness and love. She just has this great way with words. You know how people often like to advise authors - "show not tell," well, Marchetta is a master of showing. It's not what her characters say, but what they do and how they do it that gives me goosebumps, or makes my heart ache or my eyes well up with tears.
I want to take a moment here to say how much I adore the cover of the Australian edition of the novel
It represents the mood of the story so well - Tom's loneliness and isolation are so palpable!
On the other hand, I despise American colorful cover which has nothing to do whatsoever with what is inside this book:
The Piper's Son is not my favorite Melina Marchetta book, Saving Francesca is. And Tom is not my favorite Marchetta boy, that title belongs to Jonah Griggs. But I loved this novel. I loved revisiting Francesca, Will and their relationship. I loved Justine and her violinist (will she ever call him BTW, or they need to get their own book to finally get together?). I loved watching Tom change and make up for his crappy behavior. But my favorite part was undoubtedly Georgie and Sam's story, it was heart-breakingly beautiful.
The Piper's Son was all I expected from the author. I can't wait to read it again and again...
P.S. Huge thanks to Jenn and Ariel for making it possible for me to read the novel before its US release.
Didn't love as much as did originally, but the dialog is amazing, that's for sure.
Update 8/23/12
Well, Saving Francesca is not my favorite any more. For now I am sticking with the statement that I prefer her fantasies. Although it's hard to say how I feel about it after the next round of rereads. Otherwise, I pretty much stand by everything in the original review.
Original review
I don't know how Melina Marchetta does it - takes a story that seems so soap-operish and turns it into something so honest and real.
Let me tell you what The Piper's Son is all about. Tom Mackee is a complete mess. His beloved uncle died 2 years ago, his father is lost somewhere, undoubtedly drunk, his mother and sister left his dad and moved to another state. Tom has been for years and still is lost and lonely. He takes drugs, he abandoned his friends, he betrayed the girl he loved, he dropped out of uni. All is bad until he hits the rock bottom and is forced to move in with his aunt Georgie who has a whole set of problems of her own - she is pregnant by the man who hurt her in the worst possible way, she is full of grief and despair. How will these people pull themselves together?
In someone else's hands such a plot can turn into cheap melodrama. But somehow Marchetta makes it a truly great story of pain, grief, betrayal, forgiveness and love. She just has this great way with words. You know how people often like to advise authors - "show not tell," well, Marchetta is a master of showing. It's not what her characters say, but what they do and how they do it that gives me goosebumps, or makes my heart ache or my eyes well up with tears.
I want to take a moment here to say how much I adore the cover of the Australian edition of the novel
It represents the mood of the story so well - Tom's loneliness and isolation are so palpable!
On the other hand, I despise American colorful cover which has nothing to do whatsoever with what is inside this book:
The Piper's Son is not my favorite Melina Marchetta book, Saving Francesca is. And Tom is not my favorite Marchetta boy, that title belongs to Jonah Griggs. But I loved this novel. I loved revisiting Francesca, Will and their relationship. I loved Justine and her violinist (will she ever call him BTW, or they need to get their own book to finally get together?). I loved watching Tom change and make up for his crappy behavior. But my favorite part was undoubtedly Georgie and Sam's story, it was heart-breakingly beautiful.
The Piper's Son was all I expected from the author. I can't wait to read it again and again...
P.S. Huge thanks to Jenn and Ariel for making it possible for me to read the novel before its US release.
April 7, 2011
In an interview at Persnickety Snark, Melina Marchetta said that she wanted to capture, “People holding it together and succeeding some days and failing other days” in this novel. Thank you. No, seriously, thank you for summing up a book that is so hard to capture. That comment made me think of a perfect quote--“You have to laugh at yourself because you’d cry your eyes out if you didn’t.” Sure, it’s from an Indigo Girls song but it’s still totally relevant. (right?) On those days you are failing, a sense of humor goes a long way. The grief that the Mackee/Finch family has been living with for the past year or two seems insurmountable. How can life go on when life as you knew it is over?
For those unfamiliar with the story, this book follows up on several characters from Saving Francesca, though this book can stand alone. Thomas Mackee and his close-knit extended family have been grieving the loss of Tom’s uncle Joe, who died in a bombing, for over a year. Tom’s mother and sister moved away, his alcoholic father checked out, his aunt is pregnant but believes that because her grief was the impetus for her ex to return, she shouldn’t celebrate the pregnancy. This might sound like a ton of family drama going on but honestly, every person has their problems. Every family has their issues. What this book really deals with is that belief that we all have that no one could ever understand how we are feeling, especially the suffering we go through when we lose another person who is such a huge slice of our world. It’s hard to go on living when someone who served as a point of reference is no longer there. It feels so singular, like we are going alone. And sometimes it feels like it’s easier to live in oblivion.
But it wasn’t all sad. I truly laughed as much as I wallowed in this one, and often out loud. Tom's family and friends really make his turnaround. No, they make each other's turnarounds. At one point in the story, Francesca and Justine are trying to argue that Tom cried while watching Lord of the Rings. The girls text Siobhan and Tara to ask what movie Tom cried during and Siobhan answers “LOTR,” but Tara answers, “He cried when those two muppets climbed that mountain in New Zealand.” (167) I couldn’t stop laughing at this because I have several jokes with my friends that run along this line. (how people describe movies, actors, etc. but we know exactly what they mean when they say something ridiculous) Sometimes all I want is to call, email or text one of my friends just to get back the other half of a joke—it’s the reassurance of a shared memory. Family are the ultimate example…and we all know that families never forget anything. (Hell, my sister is still pissed about me knocking over her dollhouse OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO. Seriously Casey, get over it.) Anyway, I really loved the family and friendship dynamics in this one. I was really glad there was so much discussion going on about how it feels to be those people on the outside trying to help. No one knows what to say but they keep trying, and waiting, and trying some more.
I know I really love something when I don’t give a shit what anyone else says about it. You’d think it would be the opposite — teeth-baring rage directed at any naysayers. Sure, I’ll fight to defend it if someone says they didn’t enjoy x or y about it but when it all boils down, it means so much to me that everyone else can just go to hell if they don’t see its value. I’ll be in my own little corner (in my own little chair) poring over my favorite books (including this one) laughing hysterically, giving my heart a workout, inconsolably sobbing, and hoarding my memories like that packrat garbage lady in Labyrinth.
This book gave me a heartache and a stomachache. I thought I would cry, even before I knew where the book was going, even before I cracked the book open. But I didn’t. Not until the very last few pages and it was more like two tears streaming silently down my face. I wish I could know these characters in real life. I’d marry Tom Mackee in a nanosecond. And please, Melina Marchetta, please tell us what’s happened to Jimmy.
I’m leaving this picture I drew as a placeholder for my review. It’s totally honest. In this book, Melina Marchetta will rip out your heart and serve it back to you on a silver platter.
For those unfamiliar with the story, this book follows up on several characters from Saving Francesca, though this book can stand alone. Thomas Mackee and his close-knit extended family have been grieving the loss of Tom’s uncle Joe, who died in a bombing, for over a year. Tom’s mother and sister moved away, his alcoholic father checked out, his aunt is pregnant but believes that because her grief was the impetus for her ex to return, she shouldn’t celebrate the pregnancy. This might sound like a ton of family drama going on but honestly, every person has their problems. Every family has their issues. What this book really deals with is that belief that we all have that no one could ever understand how we are feeling, especially the suffering we go through when we lose another person who is such a huge slice of our world. It’s hard to go on living when someone who served as a point of reference is no longer there. It feels so singular, like we are going alone. And sometimes it feels like it’s easier to live in oblivion.
But it wasn’t all sad. I truly laughed as much as I wallowed in this one, and often out loud. Tom's family and friends really make his turnaround. No, they make each other's turnarounds. At one point in the story, Francesca and Justine are trying to argue that Tom cried while watching Lord of the Rings. The girls text Siobhan and Tara to ask what movie Tom cried during and Siobhan answers “LOTR,” but Tara answers, “He cried when those two muppets climbed that mountain in New Zealand.” (167) I couldn’t stop laughing at this because I have several jokes with my friends that run along this line. (how people describe movies, actors, etc. but we know exactly what they mean when they say something ridiculous) Sometimes all I want is to call, email or text one of my friends just to get back the other half of a joke—it’s the reassurance of a shared memory. Family are the ultimate example…and we all know that families never forget anything. (Hell, my sister is still pissed about me knocking over her dollhouse OVER TWENTY YEARS AGO. Seriously Casey, get over it.) Anyway, I really loved the family and friendship dynamics in this one. I was really glad there was so much discussion going on about how it feels to be those people on the outside trying to help. No one knows what to say but they keep trying, and waiting, and trying some more.
I know I really love something when I don’t give a shit what anyone else says about it. You’d think it would be the opposite — teeth-baring rage directed at any naysayers. Sure, I’ll fight to defend it if someone says they didn’t enjoy x or y about it but when it all boils down, it means so much to me that everyone else can just go to hell if they don’t see its value. I’ll be in my own little corner (in my own little chair) poring over my favorite books (including this one) laughing hysterically, giving my heart a workout, inconsolably sobbing, and hoarding my memories like that packrat garbage lady in Labyrinth.
This book gave me a heartache and a stomachache. I thought I would cry, even before I knew where the book was going, even before I cracked the book open. But I didn’t. Not until the very last few pages and it was more like two tears streaming silently down my face. I wish I could know these characters in real life. I’d marry Tom Mackee in a nanosecond. And please, Melina Marchetta, please tell us what’s happened to Jimmy.
I’m leaving this picture I drew as a placeholder for my review. It’s totally honest. In this book, Melina Marchetta will rip out your heart and serve it back to you on a silver platter.
February 15, 2021
Thoughts after reread : When I first discovered this wonderful story, I was obsessed with Tom. How couldn't I? This heartbreaking boy pouring down his anger and sadness and loyalty around crushed my heart. Yet it doesn't mean that the other characters lacked importance, because they never do with Marchetta who doesn't create walk-on parts. Even then, I felt connected to every member of the Mackee family, to every friend surrounding Tom.
This second time, though? I'm not going to count all the moments I went crying like a baby or tearing up while smiling or laughing crazily as if my life depended on it. I won't, because apparently there's this little something called "word limit" on here and we wouldn't want me rambling all day until reaching it now would we? I guess that's a no, but trust me, it was intense.
That's why the only thing I'll say is this : Every relationship gave me chills. Every fucking one of them. Dominic and Tom. Georgie and Sam. Tom and the girls. Tara and Tom. Francesca and Will. Callum and Tom. Whether they are 6 or 21 or 42 or 70, each and every one of these characters ring true.
And I'm a bit in love with every one of them.
"Like I was fucking nothing to him. Like I'm nothing to no one."
PS : Psss! Hey, you, readers! Months after my reading I still find me thinking about Tom and his family, inside in knots, and that's so rare I couldn't not aknowledge that feeling. Please, if you feel the urge to step out your comfort zone, just try it. Actually that book makes me want to take my entire friend list and to click frantically on recommend - but nah, don't worry, I wouldn't do that. I think. I guess (shut up).
"You can know someone all your life, like your parents or family, but I'll tell you this, Ned. There's an expression on their face, or a tone in their voice, or the way they walk, that you've never ever seen before. Like they've kept it hidden. Until their brother dies. Or their son. I remember those days and they were like these strangers and I wanted to say, Who are you people?"
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March 30, 2012
Edit 31/08/11: After re-reading some of my favourite parts of this book, I decided to overlook what made me decide to give it 4 instead of 5 stars before. It's just too good for anything less than 5.
Original Review
First I have to explain why I'm not giving this book the full five stars it seems everyone else is giving it. Likely it is just me being stupid and inappreciative of subtle beauties but I thought towards the beginning there were too many parts of the book that lost me. I understood that the writing was great but I couldn't grasp where the story was going or the point behind it and I spent about half of the first 80 pages getting distracted.
And then... I got it. No, I really did. It was the kind of story that is meant to be subtle but turns out all the more meaningful for it. Melina Marchetta is undoubtedly a fantastic writer who creates very believable and imperfect characters. Tom, let's be honest, is a little shit, he deliberately says things he knows will hurt people and he's just generally not a very nice guy. But you feel his pain too. This book is an example of the good kind of angst, the kind that leaves the reader feeling just as wounded as the characters in question.
The vast array of troubled characters who have experienced all kinds of heartbreak and hurt could have turned this novel into something cliched, melodramatic and soap opera-ish. On the contrary, the author conveys nothing but raw, gut-twisting emotion; it's difficult not to at least get teary-eyed at some point.
Also, I had to compare Tom's one and a half night stand turned I-won't-admit-it-but-I-desperately-need-you with Tara Finke to the love angst of Adam in Where She Went. Not because the relationships themselves are particularly similar, but because I experienced a similar depth of emotion told in very different ways. It has to be said, even though it has already been said by many others before, the scene where Tom goes down on Tara and thinks about the bell line from the poem. Oral sex goes poetic? It's oddly beautiful.
I don't suppose I wrote this review for any other reason than I couldn't help myself. I mean, it's not as if the book needed some more raving about, the many reviews already shout it out pretty loudly. So, you know, if you haven't read this book... you know what to do.
April 27, 2023
This is the book for people with truly big hearts¹.
¹ Metaphorically speaking, of course, because in the words of warning from Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD:
This is a book about finding your way back after having lost yourself in the depths of grief. It is the story of people who desperately try and often fail to hold their lives together.
The part of this book that I loved and would be happy to give at least 4 stars to was the part with Georgie - a 42-year-old mother-to-be, caught in a sticky situation of carrying the baby (which she did not want for the reasons of her own) of a man who has betrayed her in the past. All while trying to get over the grief of losing her little brother - and, to a point, her twin brother as well. Georgie is a lovely character - both strong and vulnerable, sometimes unreasonable and petty, at other times amazing with the amount of generosity in her heart and soul. She felt real to me, and for most of her story I wanted to reach into the book's pages and give her the most sincere hug.
The part that cost this book quite a few of its stars was Georgie's nephew Tom, the other narrative voice, who appears to be more of a protagonist of this story than Georgie does. He is lonely and broken and lost and a mess and sensitive and misunderstood and all that stuff that is supposed to make my girly heart swoon at his vulnerability. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with this quote quite a bit:
¹ Metaphorically speaking, of course, because in the words of warning from Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD:
This is a book about finding your way back after having lost yourself in the depths of grief. It is the story of people who desperately try and often fail to hold their lives together.
"I know this sounds cruel, Georgie," Lucia says, "but grieving people are selfish. They won't let you comfort them and they say you don't understand and they make you feel *useless* when all your life you've been functional to them."It is an emotional book, full of raw and exposed feelings. It is flowing with melancholy which gives way to anger which in turn gives way to love and hope just to swing back into the tender melancholy again. It is a book about people broken by their grief, who now have to come to terms with it and learn how to live as whole beings again. It is tender and touching, and quite lovely. With a healthy helping of angst, I must admit.
"Her voice whispering love soothes him. They'd never done that before. Weren't that type of family. Except now he doesn't know what kind of family they are. What word is it that can define them? What would they call his family in the textbooks? Broken? He comes from a broken home. The Mackees can't be put back together again. There are too many pieces of them missing."Now, this lovely Melina Marchetta book *barely* missed the 4-star designation for me. Barely. Maybe because I've been calloused by life at this point. Maybe because I feel a little too old to fully accept the amount of angst that it has. Maybe because at times I felt like reaching into this book and very gently shaking the characters to their senses. And maybe because despite the ever-present melancholy I kept having this nagging feeling that somehow everything will magically turn out to be alright, even though to sustain the emotional protracted gut-punching it should not have. But 3.5 stars I gave it are well-earned, and for me Marchetta is becoming a writing force to be reckoned with.
"She knows that feeling too. Of believing that each time someone says her name, it’s to tell her that something bad has happened.""If the above quote did not make you sadly sigh, you must be a robot. Or an incredibly happy-go-lucky person.
The part of this book that I loved and would be happy to give at least 4 stars to was the part with Georgie - a 42-year-old mother-to-be, caught in a sticky situation of carrying the baby (which she did not want for the reasons of her own) of a man who has betrayed her in the past. All while trying to get over the grief of losing her little brother - and, to a point, her twin brother as well. Georgie is a lovely character - both strong and vulnerable, sometimes unreasonable and petty, at other times amazing with the amount of generosity in her heart and soul. She felt real to me, and for most of her story I wanted to reach into the book's pages and give her the most sincere hug.
The part that cost this book quite a few of its stars was Georgie's nephew Tom, the other narrative voice, who appears to be more of a protagonist of this story than Georgie does. He is lonely and broken and lost and a mess and sensitive and misunderstood and all that stuff that is supposed to make my girly heart swoon at his vulnerability. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with this quote quite a bit:
"Tom could probably count on the hands of every member of his family, and extended family, and the city of Sydney, how many times he's felt like a dick this year."More than anything, this book is the story of Tom's redemption and him finding his real self again after a trying couple of years of his life. But I found it hard to feel for him. Wallowing in his own despair, he seemed to be so hell-bent on being a jerk to anyone who dared to show any love for him that I decided to not open my heart to him - and that was surprisingly easy. I just think that the excuse of being a jerk because of your own misery only takes you so far, and that Tom was incredibly lucky to have a group of friends that for whatever reasons did not give up on him. They must have had bigger hearts than mine.
"He kisses her and wants to beg her and the others to never give up on him. *Ever*. But he gets a feeling that he would be preaching to the converted."3.5 stars from my calloused heart. I have not read the prequel to this one, Saving Francesca, but I will definitely look for it now. Melina Marchetta is a good writer, and I'm looking forward to more of her books full of heart and humor and always quite a bit of sadness.
"Once she made him watch Pride and Prejudice and for ages he would re-word Mr Bingley's apology to Jane Bennet, saying, 'I've been an inexplicable fool', for anything from losing his keys to burping out loud. Her reply to anything she wanted to do was Jane Bennet's response to Bingley's marriage proposal, 'A thousand times yes.'
May 26, 2015
4.5 Stars!!
Once again, Melina Marchetta surprised me in a very good way with this novel. This was my second book by this author and it’s very clear to me now how talented she is. The main character in this story is Thomas ‘Tom’ Mackee , character we met in “Saving Francesca”. “The Piper’s Son” take place five years after the events in “Saving Francesca” and fallows up Tom’s life, several characters’ life we met before in the book I mentioned above and some new characters as well. It’s a story about life, family, friends, love, grief, forgiveness, loyalty and so much more. It’s a complex novel and I loved every minute of it.
Tom is a mess. He drinks, he smokes pot, he sleeps around. He’s trouble with capital T. He dropped out of uni, he’s no longer close with his friends, his uncle died, his parents are separated and he doesn’t speak with neither of them. On top of that, Tara, the only girl he wanted left him and she doesn’t want to speak with him anymore. Needless to say Tom is lonely and a little lost as well. He’s forced by certain circumstances to move with his aunt Georgie who’s pregnant and has her own issues to deal with. After two years she’s still struggle to accept her brother’s death and the fact that now she’s pregnant by the man who hurt her like no one else. Georgie feels exactly like her nephew, angry, lost and lonely.
This novel has everything. I know I said exactly the same think in my review for “Saving Francesca, but this is the honest true. It’s emotional and heartbreaking at times, it’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s a very relatable story in many ways and it’s real. I was intrigued by Tom’s character before starting this novel and I’m glad I get to know him better. Tom is a character you will like from the beginning. He’s a flawed character written very well, a character you will feel for, sympathize with and fall for.
We get to see Tom in many situations in this novel – with his family, with his friends and with Tara. His character development is fantastically done. Like I said he has his own issues and flaws, but genuinely he’s a good guy – caring, sweet, supportive, attentive, but he also can be an a**. Anyway, I loved all the emails between Tom and Tara. They were funny and sweet, they were perfect. And I loved the way he feels for Tara.
The relationship between Tom and his family felt real to me from the beginning to end. I love the dynamic between them all and all the interactions even if they were not always ‘light’.
Georgie is a character I liked from the beginning. Like Tom she has flaws and she also has fears and insecurities. I felt for her and overall, like I said I liked her, even if I didn’t agree with her decisions at times.
This is a character driven story, so the plot was pretty simple, not as complex as others YA novels's plots. But sometimes engaging, well developed, likeable characters are what a story needs to be ‘perfect'.
Overall, a wonderful read!
Once again, Melina Marchetta surprised me in a very good way with this novel. This was my second book by this author and it’s very clear to me now how talented she is. The main character in this story is Thomas ‘Tom’ Mackee , character we met in “Saving Francesca”. “The Piper’s Son” take place five years after the events in “Saving Francesca” and fallows up Tom’s life, several characters’ life we met before in the book I mentioned above and some new characters as well. It’s a story about life, family, friends, love, grief, forgiveness, loyalty and so much more. It’s a complex novel and I loved every minute of it.
Tom is a mess. He drinks, he smokes pot, he sleeps around. He’s trouble with capital T. He dropped out of uni, he’s no longer close with his friends, his uncle died, his parents are separated and he doesn’t speak with neither of them. On top of that, Tara, the only girl he wanted left him and she doesn’t want to speak with him anymore. Needless to say Tom is lonely and a little lost as well. He’s forced by certain circumstances to move with his aunt Georgie who’s pregnant and has her own issues to deal with. After two years she’s still struggle to accept her brother’s death and the fact that now she’s pregnant by the man who hurt her like no one else. Georgie feels exactly like her nephew, angry, lost and lonely.
This novel has everything. I know I said exactly the same think in my review for “Saving Francesca, but this is the honest true. It’s emotional and heartbreaking at times, it’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s a very relatable story in many ways and it’s real. I was intrigued by Tom’s character before starting this novel and I’m glad I get to know him better. Tom is a character you will like from the beginning. He’s a flawed character written very well, a character you will feel for, sympathize with and fall for.
We get to see Tom in many situations in this novel – with his family, with his friends and with Tara. His character development is fantastically done. Like I said he has his own issues and flaws, but genuinely he’s a good guy – caring, sweet, supportive, attentive, but he also can be an a**. Anyway, I loved all the emails between Tom and Tara. They were funny and sweet, they were perfect. And I loved the way he feels for Tara.
The relationship between Tom and his family felt real to me from the beginning to end. I love the dynamic between them all and all the interactions even if they were not always ‘light’.
Georgie is a character I liked from the beginning. Like Tom she has flaws and she also has fears and insecurities. I felt for her and overall, like I said I liked her, even if I didn’t agree with her decisions at times.
This is a character driven story, so the plot was pretty simple, not as complex as others YA novels's plots. But sometimes engaging, well developed, likeable characters are what a story needs to be ‘perfect'.
Overall, a wonderful read!
March 26, 2011
Sometimes I can't take the shit in my real life (okay, my inner nothing to show for it life is mostly purgatorial neverending staircases too. Some stupid shit that amuses me way too much as well) and I pretty much have to run away for the cause of my fleeting hold of sanity (gasp!). My savior are those beach trips with my books. I've been shoring up all my hopes for them. I'm so happy that we've had beach weather again. The Piper's Son is my second beach book of 2011. I know this is going to be one of my longing times because I kept taking hold of moments as they were happening (something I do when anything good happens). "I'm going to wish it was still this moment." The first book, Saving Francesca, is THE young adult book that is relevant to my past, present and (no use pretending) future (it doesn't matter that I'm not a teenager. Family doesn't end). So my life has been too much again for Saving Francesca reasons. I'll leave it at that, like family reasons are too much to explain to anyone not family. The Piper's Sons reasons are my reasons too. Crawl under a rock. No books and lights under the duvet. There's no damned light because it's too hard. The mind trains are stuck. I run away to the beach. It's freedom to not know anyone around (I can even do my awesome chair dance moves and not care who sees. New me! I love strangers). I am not staring at the dead end horizons any more. I really needed this story about Tom who has the complicated family life that is impossibly hard. He kills his good chances himself. Tom and Francesca... shit, I do relate to these two. I am still running away. But... this book is that new space, like "You can get through this" running away. I'm just happy to get out of the stuckness. If I could explain why I could believe Tom found his freedom from the old shit... I'm jealous too!
It feels like it could be seen from outer space. If it could be! Why Mariel loved The Piper's Son so damned much. Those feelings of wanting to change the world. From sitting in the sand? I'd write with a stick "THIS BOOK IS AWESOME, MAJOR TOM!" Yeah, maybe. If you've ever felt so much inside that it SHOULD be seen from outer space, only it isn't. The Piper's Son is seeing it. Yeah, that's it. Mind blind spots that are complicated family reasons of just you. And you get it anyway. Melina Marchetta must be a genius. Outer spaces as inner spaces.
Live through this... ?
P.s. I freaking loved it when Tom starts listening to Regina Spektor in secret.
My top Regina Spektor songs
1. Loveology
2. Prisoners
3. Daniel Cowman
4. Carbon Monoxide
5. The Genius Next Door
6. Folding Chair
7. Belt
8. Consequence of Sounds
9. Braille
10. Samson
P.s.s. I felt more intensely about this story and these people than this review lets on. It's hard to open up about how much I really get Tom and Francesca. Sometimes this shit becomes the part of you that to you're just sick to death of telling yourself about. Talking about it to people who don't have this inside them can be those punches Tom didn't pull to get rid of anyone who would help. Or fear that it does... They tell me. I'd rather be there, for them. I'm barely here for me sometimes.
It feels like it could be seen from outer space. If it could be! Why Mariel loved The Piper's Son so damned much. Those feelings of wanting to change the world. From sitting in the sand? I'd write with a stick "THIS BOOK IS AWESOME, MAJOR TOM!" Yeah, maybe. If you've ever felt so much inside that it SHOULD be seen from outer space, only it isn't. The Piper's Son is seeing it. Yeah, that's it. Mind blind spots that are complicated family reasons of just you. And you get it anyway. Melina Marchetta must be a genius. Outer spaces as inner spaces.
Live through this... ?
P.s. I freaking loved it when Tom starts listening to Regina Spektor in secret.
My top Regina Spektor songs
1. Loveology
2. Prisoners
3. Daniel Cowman
4. Carbon Monoxide
5. The Genius Next Door
6. Folding Chair
7. Belt
8. Consequence of Sounds
9. Braille
10. Samson
P.s.s. I felt more intensely about this story and these people than this review lets on. It's hard to open up about how much I really get Tom and Francesca. Sometimes this shit becomes the part of you that to you're just sick to death of telling yourself about. Talking about it to people who don't have this inside them can be those punches Tom didn't pull to get rid of anyone who would help. Or fear that it does... They tell me. I'd rather be there, for them. I'm barely here for me sometimes.
November 4, 2011
I have decided to write a review of this book, but it is sensitive territory, I think, and I don’t want to make anybody feel from my review the way I feel from the book. I am not giving the book a star rating because I can’t tell if it is a good book or not through the amount that I hate it on a personal level, and I feel like giving it a low rating would discount other people's experiences of tragedy or something. (Okay, after almost a year of considering it, I did decide to rate this book. Sorry, guys.) I can’t even tell if I think it is a deeply false book, or if it is just deeply false to my life. This is probably one of those experiences of wrong place/wrong time. I think if I had seen The Notebook in high school instead of after college, I would not have hated it, just like if I had read The Piper’s Son some other time, maybe I would not have hated it. This is also one of those times when I should have stopped early on and not pushed through. Why have I not learned this lesson yet? Anyway, I’m sorry I hate this book so much because so many of my wonderful friends love it. You will say I didn’t understand, and that will be true.
It seems like Marchetta tends to write something similar to the Job story. Job was never one of my favorite stories from the Bible (being more of a Jonah and Ruth girl myself), but it was my dad’s favorite for a little while, during a more lucid time in his life, so I have done some thinking on it. This book reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad about Job once. In my memory, which I think I have tailored to my reading of this book, my dad was talking about why he loved Job. The story starts out by telling you that Job is God’s chosen and someone with no faults. The author tells you, and so you know, that none of the things that happen to Job are punishment. And then, right away, God makes a bet with the devil that Job will never turn against Him, and He unleashes the devil on Job just to prove it.
In the first page, maybe second, the devil destroys Job’s whole life, and it only takes a sentence or two. He burns down Job’s farm and kills his livestock; a building collapses on all of Job’s children, maybe spouses and grandchildren, killing them instantly; and then Job’s body falls apart with boils and scabs and whatnot. Job’s wife tells him to curse God and die, and they go their separate ways. Everyone Job knows abandons him. But, that is not what the story is about. That is all just preface. The story is actually about three of Job’s “friends,” who come and visit him, and who are total pompous assholes. They sit around for the entire story, trying to work out for Job what he did to deserve God’s wrath. It is actually an annoying story to read, to me, because the stuff these guys say is so unbearably windbaggy. Then there is a cool part at the end where God comes by and says, “Who are you to ask why this happened? I’m God, I created the behemoth, and you’re nothing.” Old Testament God is so much more interesting than New Testament God. Anyway, my dad loved that this story about ultimate tragedy is mostly about human blame.
My friend was saying the other day that life feels like she used to have all of these warm winter coats wrapped around her and suddenly they’ve been stripped off and the wind is chill. That’s it exactly to me. And I feel like Marchetta tries to write characters whose coats have been stripped off, but to me she fails, and that leaves me confused and bitter at the emptiness of the stories. I do not want to question anyone’s experience of loss, but watching Marchetta’s kids does not feel like watching loss to me, though I think it is supposed to. Job feels more like someone left in the wind. Because tragedy might be part of nature, but the chill wind is people. All of Marchetta’s characters experience tragedy, but then they are surrounded by so many people who just want to devote their lives to helping and encouraging that it is false to me.
I think I wouldn’t hate it, like I probably wouldn’t hate The Notebook, if so much of it didn’t eerily resonate with me. I have said and done those things, had those experiences, or at least known a close friend or two who did. So, then, the ultimate hugs and puppies feel like deliberate falseness injected into a very real story. I take them personally, and they are very effective messages that hurt my feelings a lot. They are “friends” sitting around saying, well, look how similar this person’s life is to yours, and everybody fell all over themselves to give this person bags of diamonds when they were sad. And I don’t even want to make it out like I have some terrible life, or people are sooooo mean to me, because I totally don’t and they obviously aren’t. I just think Marchetta, like Nicholas Sparks, throws in natural tragedy – death, depression – for emotional impact, and then shies away from hard truths. Like, what if every single bad feeling ever between characters was not just a silly misunderstanding? What if people actually didn’t like each other and that’s why they were assholes? I am not a fan of the theory that people are assholes to each other because they just love each other so much. I think it is more often because they don’t. I feel very uneasy about the opposite message.
Marchetta takes away a scarf, which we hear rumors that a character had before the story began, and then replaces it with snow gear, a hazmat suit, and a plastic bubble. I do not want to see characters suffer more, but it feels manipulative to use real tragedy to facilitate the Grease story. For whatever reason, the specific things that sent me through the roof in the story were . At another time in life, I think I would have read it and hoped it somehow related to reality, like I think I would have hoped with The Notebook. But now I read it and just feel bitter and old and confused. I don’t want these kids to stop having fun or even get off my lawn, but I need a little easier transition between before and the after of this ABC Home Makeover.
It seems like Marchetta tends to write something similar to the Job story. Job was never one of my favorite stories from the Bible (being more of a Jonah and Ruth girl myself), but it was my dad’s favorite for a little while, during a more lucid time in his life, so I have done some thinking on it. This book reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad about Job once. In my memory, which I think I have tailored to my reading of this book, my dad was talking about why he loved Job. The story starts out by telling you that Job is God’s chosen and someone with no faults. The author tells you, and so you know, that none of the things that happen to Job are punishment. And then, right away, God makes a bet with the devil that Job will never turn against Him, and He unleashes the devil on Job just to prove it.
In the first page, maybe second, the devil destroys Job’s whole life, and it only takes a sentence or two. He burns down Job’s farm and kills his livestock; a building collapses on all of Job’s children, maybe spouses and grandchildren, killing them instantly; and then Job’s body falls apart with boils and scabs and whatnot. Job’s wife tells him to curse God and die, and they go their separate ways. Everyone Job knows abandons him. But, that is not what the story is about. That is all just preface. The story is actually about three of Job’s “friends,” who come and visit him, and who are total pompous assholes. They sit around for the entire story, trying to work out for Job what he did to deserve God’s wrath. It is actually an annoying story to read, to me, because the stuff these guys say is so unbearably windbaggy. Then there is a cool part at the end where God comes by and says, “Who are you to ask why this happened? I’m God, I created the behemoth, and you’re nothing.” Old Testament God is so much more interesting than New Testament God. Anyway, my dad loved that this story about ultimate tragedy is mostly about human blame.
My friend was saying the other day that life feels like she used to have all of these warm winter coats wrapped around her and suddenly they’ve been stripped off and the wind is chill. That’s it exactly to me. And I feel like Marchetta tries to write characters whose coats have been stripped off, but to me she fails, and that leaves me confused and bitter at the emptiness of the stories. I do not want to question anyone’s experience of loss, but watching Marchetta’s kids does not feel like watching loss to me, though I think it is supposed to. Job feels more like someone left in the wind. Because tragedy might be part of nature, but the chill wind is people. All of Marchetta’s characters experience tragedy, but then they are surrounded by so many people who just want to devote their lives to helping and encouraging that it is false to me.
I think I wouldn’t hate it, like I probably wouldn’t hate The Notebook, if so much of it didn’t eerily resonate with me. I have said and done those things, had those experiences, or at least known a close friend or two who did. So, then, the ultimate hugs and puppies feel like deliberate falseness injected into a very real story. I take them personally, and they are very effective messages that hurt my feelings a lot. They are “friends” sitting around saying, well, look how similar this person’s life is to yours, and everybody fell all over themselves to give this person bags of diamonds when they were sad. And I don’t even want to make it out like I have some terrible life, or people are sooooo mean to me, because I totally don’t and they obviously aren’t. I just think Marchetta, like Nicholas Sparks, throws in natural tragedy – death, depression – for emotional impact, and then shies away from hard truths. Like, what if every single bad feeling ever between characters was not just a silly misunderstanding? What if people actually didn’t like each other and that’s why they were assholes? I am not a fan of the theory that people are assholes to each other because they just love each other so much. I think it is more often because they don’t. I feel very uneasy about the opposite message.
Marchetta takes away a scarf, which we hear rumors that a character had before the story began, and then replaces it with snow gear, a hazmat suit, and a plastic bubble. I do not want to see characters suffer more, but it feels manipulative to use real tragedy to facilitate the Grease story. For whatever reason, the specific things that sent me through the roof in the story were . At another time in life, I think I would have read it and hoped it somehow related to reality, like I think I would have hoped with The Notebook. But now I read it and just feel bitter and old and confused. I don’t want these kids to stop having fun or even get off my lawn, but I need a little easier transition between before and the after of this ABC Home Makeover.
June 11, 2011
At first I had this book at arms-length. It couldn't be as good as Saving Francesca! This one seemed to be all these wacky family and friends, entertaining but nothing I could identify with. But...actually, I could. Somehow, I understood these people, their frustrations and love. I broken-record bemoan how my family has never communicated like this, how I've never been part of a circle of friends like this. They're so luckyyyyyy, my life is sooooooooo harrrrrrd...hah, I do get stuck in the woe-is-me state.
I remember my brother and I at maybe 6 and 4 years old watching tv in the evening, I think after our baths, and mom comes in with this rope that she wields to make a sound like a whipcrack. My big brother starts bawling. Mom and I stare at him, look at each other, and begin laughing. He sobbingly yells "it's not funny!" in that broken way that can only make one laugh harder. I can see that the rope is red licorice, candy that mom meant to treat us with.
I remember visiting the southern coast of Korea, where women dive without equipment for edibles from the sea. I'm about 6 and terribly cute, and get my picture taken with some of these weathered ladies who exclaim over me. The parents and us kids sit down in a nearby restaurant to eat fresh delicacies. Sliced sea cucumber, glistening and almost quivering. My parents dig in. Dad offers a piece to my brother. He overreacts, screwing up his little face to start crying and throwing up his arm to defend his mouth from this yucky-looking piece of goo. Someone snaps a picture right then. I bust out laughing every single time I come across that picture, even today.
Huh, lots of my happy memories seem to involve my brother crying. Is funny!!!
I remember one night after some church group sports, for some reason my brother and I decide to walk the half mile home instead of waiting for mom to pick us up. We're about 10 and 12, well into the sibling standoff years. We go out the back and start crossing the huge field. I get scared. My brother, for the first time in a long time (and for the last time I can recall) reaches out and takes my hand, gently encouraging me into a jog.
I remember hours and hours of watching him play video games, yelling "yeah!" when he's racking up the points and yelling "nooooo!" when he gets defeated by the bad guys. The carpet where I sat is still obviously worn, that one spot every time.
I remember a recent evening, visiting the parents, and dad has bought me some cookies. Mom is scolding him because of the sugar. I offer to split it with dad. Mom includes me in the scolding, since dad isn't supposed to have that much sugar, he's too old, old people eat sugar and get fat like your dad, he shouldn't buy that anymore.... Behind mom's back, I see dad quietly open the package and remove a few for himself, hiding it in his work bag. He holds his finger up to his smiling lips and I give him a nod, quickly returning attention back to mom before she looks back to see what's distracted me from her lecture.
I remember a rough day of not working on my thesis, probably in my 3rd year of grad school as I drag out the process, uncertain of what would come next if I finished it and had no next goal ready to go. A housemate pulls out a new DVD of Mulan, saying she was thinking of me and thought I'd like it. I remember visiting a friend around Easter and being handed an adorable little chicken toy, one that I keep in my car where I can see it. I remember...this thing, where I was pretty stupid, and crying and crying and crying, and my friend putting her arm around me saying everything would be all right even though I knew it could never be all right again (but it was all right, soon). I remember shaking in frustration over "team"work, clenching my fists so that even my bitten nails were threatening to draw blood, and a friend talking talkingtalkingtalking so that I was soothed without realizing it, soon laughing and commiserating.
I remember...some more. It's nothing like this book, really, but it digs up these memories. I did cry, at a few different points. God, I hope she writes of these people again.
I remember my brother and I at maybe 6 and 4 years old watching tv in the evening, I think after our baths, and mom comes in with this rope that she wields to make a sound like a whipcrack. My big brother starts bawling. Mom and I stare at him, look at each other, and begin laughing. He sobbingly yells "it's not funny!" in that broken way that can only make one laugh harder. I can see that the rope is red licorice, candy that mom meant to treat us with.
I remember visiting the southern coast of Korea, where women dive without equipment for edibles from the sea. I'm about 6 and terribly cute, and get my picture taken with some of these weathered ladies who exclaim over me. The parents and us kids sit down in a nearby restaurant to eat fresh delicacies. Sliced sea cucumber, glistening and almost quivering. My parents dig in. Dad offers a piece to my brother. He overreacts, screwing up his little face to start crying and throwing up his arm to defend his mouth from this yucky-looking piece of goo. Someone snaps a picture right then. I bust out laughing every single time I come across that picture, even today.
Huh, lots of my happy memories seem to involve my brother crying. Is funny!!!
I remember one night after some church group sports, for some reason my brother and I decide to walk the half mile home instead of waiting for mom to pick us up. We're about 10 and 12, well into the sibling standoff years. We go out the back and start crossing the huge field. I get scared. My brother, for the first time in a long time (and for the last time I can recall) reaches out and takes my hand, gently encouraging me into a jog.
I remember hours and hours of watching him play video games, yelling "yeah!" when he's racking up the points and yelling "nooooo!" when he gets defeated by the bad guys. The carpet where I sat is still obviously worn, that one spot every time.
I remember a recent evening, visiting the parents, and dad has bought me some cookies. Mom is scolding him because of the sugar. I offer to split it with dad. Mom includes me in the scolding, since dad isn't supposed to have that much sugar, he's too old, old people eat sugar and get fat like your dad, he shouldn't buy that anymore.... Behind mom's back, I see dad quietly open the package and remove a few for himself, hiding it in his work bag. He holds his finger up to his smiling lips and I give him a nod, quickly returning attention back to mom before she looks back to see what's distracted me from her lecture.
I remember a rough day of not working on my thesis, probably in my 3rd year of grad school as I drag out the process, uncertain of what would come next if I finished it and had no next goal ready to go. A housemate pulls out a new DVD of Mulan, saying she was thinking of me and thought I'd like it. I remember visiting a friend around Easter and being handed an adorable little chicken toy, one that I keep in my car where I can see it. I remember...this thing, where I was pretty stupid, and crying and crying and crying, and my friend putting her arm around me saying everything would be all right even though I knew it could never be all right again (but it was all right, soon). I remember shaking in frustration over "team"work, clenching my fists so that even my bitten nails were threatening to draw blood, and a friend talking talkingtalkingtalking so that I was soothed without realizing it, soon laughing and commiserating.
I remember...some more. It's nothing like this book, really, but it digs up these memories. I did cry, at a few different points. God, I hope she writes of these people again.
June 6, 2011
I know I should have savoured this book in its entirety. I should have read slowly and taken my time. The book clearly deserves savouring.
But I have no restraint. Instead, I holed up in my room for the whole afternoon (hurray for being a university student with Friday afternoons off!), neglecting food and any means of communication, and finished The Piper’s Son in about eight hours, taking only very small breaks. Now I feel a bit lightheaded and dizzy, my eyes are puffy and a little red from crying, but I have this wonderful feeling only very few books can give me. They make me forget the world around me completely, they make me feel with their characters and love them despite their obvious flaws and they make me wish the book would never end.
All of Melina Marchetta’s books I’ve read so far are among them, and Thomas Mackee’s story is no exception. Marchetta simply has a way with words that makes her novels so compelling and unputdownable (does this word exist?), and her characters do not only feel authentic and realistic to me, they feel like real people. People I would love to know and be friends with, to be honest.
It was amazing to see the group of friends from Saving Francesca again (and even some secondary characters from Jellicoe Road, although they only made a brief appearance), and I feel a little sad now that the book is over and I had to leave them behind. I simply adore the way Marchetta portrays the friendship between Francesca, Tom, Justine, Siobhan, Tara and Jimmy. Those people have become friends although they didn’t even like each other at the beginning, and despite their differences and the mistakes they made, they will always stay friends and help each other, no matter what happens.
But apart from that, it was equally great to meet the new characters introduced in this novel. I loved Tom’s aunt Georgie and the dynamics in the Mackee household. This family clearly has lots of issues and some don’t know how to deal with them, but there is always an underlying sense of understanding and love.
Also, it is great to see a novel that is somehow able to bridge a gap between YA and adult literature, as the story is told in alternating form from both Tom’s and his aunt’s points of view. And, despite being a novel about grief and loss, it had its hilariously funny moments!
So, well, I will stop gushing here, sorry. It's always a little hard to write reviews for books I absolutely loved - after a while I realise how limited my vocabulary is when it comes to praise.
Should you somehow not have gotten the hint up until now: I would strongly recommend you read this book (if you haven't done so already).
Thanks a lot to Nic for sending this over and to Olivia for letting me borrow it!
But I have no restraint. Instead, I holed up in my room for the whole afternoon (hurray for being a university student with Friday afternoons off!), neglecting food and any means of communication, and finished The Piper’s Son in about eight hours, taking only very small breaks. Now I feel a bit lightheaded and dizzy, my eyes are puffy and a little red from crying, but I have this wonderful feeling only very few books can give me. They make me forget the world around me completely, they make me feel with their characters and love them despite their obvious flaws and they make me wish the book would never end.
All of Melina Marchetta’s books I’ve read so far are among them, and Thomas Mackee’s story is no exception. Marchetta simply has a way with words that makes her novels so compelling and unputdownable (does this word exist?), and her characters do not only feel authentic and realistic to me, they feel like real people. People I would love to know and be friends with, to be honest.
It was amazing to see the group of friends from Saving Francesca again (and even some secondary characters from Jellicoe Road, although they only made a brief appearance), and I feel a little sad now that the book is over and I had to leave them behind. I simply adore the way Marchetta portrays the friendship between Francesca, Tom, Justine, Siobhan, Tara and Jimmy. Those people have become friends although they didn’t even like each other at the beginning, and despite their differences and the mistakes they made, they will always stay friends and help each other, no matter what happens.
But apart from that, it was equally great to meet the new characters introduced in this novel. I loved Tom’s aunt Georgie and the dynamics in the Mackee household. This family clearly has lots of issues and some don’t know how to deal with them, but there is always an underlying sense of understanding and love.
Also, it is great to see a novel that is somehow able to bridge a gap between YA and adult literature, as the story is told in alternating form from both Tom’s and his aunt’s points of view. And, despite being a novel about grief and loss, it had its hilariously funny moments!
So, well, I will stop gushing here, sorry. It's always a little hard to write reviews for books I absolutely loved - after a while I realise how limited my vocabulary is when it comes to praise.
Should you somehow not have gotten the hint up until now: I would strongly recommend you read this book (if you haven't done so already).
Thanks a lot to Nic for sending this over and to Olivia for letting me borrow it!
April 28, 2012
Isn't the Aussie cover just gorgeous?
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“She's tired and leans her head on his shoulder, which is the resting place for all their heads, but when Justine and Siobhan and Francesca use his body so shamelessly he doesn't feel the need to turn his head and press his mouth against their hair..
Tom wants oblivion.
He's 'aiming for oblivion' because he is sick of everything.
His uncle Joe died a few years back and he has never been quite the same since. He is still full of anger and grief and bitterness. Worse still, he stayed behind when his mother went away with his sister, Anabel, after his dads drinking went from bad to worse.
He stayed because he could not bring himself to leave his father when he knew he needed him most.
But only weeks later his father left him too.
So he broke up with Tara Finke, because being around her hurt too much, because he was afraid she could never fix him, and he left the gang because he could not find the words to speak to any of them anymore.
Tom pushes away every friend that he loves, and the family that he loves keeps leaving him. When we meet him he's high on drugs, split his head, living with some idiots and indulging in one night stands.
But when he wakes up, it's Tara that he calls for and Tara who he wants to save him because he needs saving, and it's Francesca, who he hasn't talked to for years, that is sitting by his side with sadness and pity in her eyes that he can't stand.
Francesca really shines in this book. Her determination to hold on to Tom, to be there for him when he is horrible to her astounds me. She is so patient because she knows that he is sad and hurting and that she needs to have faith, and she keeps hoping that her Tom will come back to her and the girls. And when he does, reluctantly, she is scared and weary but she refuses to leave him. You can think what you want of Francesca, but if you need her when you are in dire need, she will not hesitate to be there. I don't know if friends like that even exist anymore.
Although I've read this before, it still shakes me up how different Tom is. How this laughing, dorky, crude, funny boy changed into this different angry hurting person so fast. It makes you take a step back because if you've read SF just a few days before (like I did), seeing him so different is almost overwhelming.
Marchetta steals my heart with these characters. Finally, this time around, I got to see Will in another light and realise that he really is good for her. And that he might be a prick at times and full of it, but he also has a lot of heart. And he might not be the most affectionate in a crowd but if you take a closer look, you'll see that he understands her like no one else does. When she is down he tells her 'we'll get through this' and when she is shivering and cold he takes her hand in his and puts it in his pocket to keep her warm. And even if you look back to SF when she asks him if he thinks anyone knows if she alive, he doesn't hesitate to tell her that he does.
It's very easy to dislike Will but probably even harder to like him because he so easily comes across as an ass. But it also took me this time around to also realise why him and Tom don't get along. Or why he doesn't like Tom anyway. It's because they both love her. And I think the two are still working on sharing her with the other.
I have a bone to pick with a few of them though. Tom's mother and father, for example. I think it's completely out of line how both their children suffer because they're making them live worlds apart, and then let them think they're going to have a divorce yet they don't even have the decency to tell them the truth. I don't even know what to say to that. I pretty much hate the two for it.
Seeing things through Tom's eyes is so painful. With Francesca when she sees Will and how she views the world might be blurred and dark but there's also still that innocence about her. When there's a moment where Will has her against the wall in SF. It was all very swoony and such but when Tom sees it in PS, I was a bit like 'oh' and then 'OH MY GOD' and then 'what the hell, look away, Aly!'. Because I wasn't ready to see it so bluntly and raw through his eyes. It also made me realise that Francesca is no longer the young girl I always viewed her as. She's a woman. And seeing someone grow up so fast is kind of hard when you grow to love them.
When you read about couples in some books, you always tend to think what they have is sweet and nice and leave it at that. Because at the end of the day you know it's just fiction. But in this book, it's so damn realistic that you find yourself intrigued and completely in love with these guys, but at the same time, when they have these moments, you feel like you're intruding, because it's so personal and perfect and wonderful that a part of you can't help but wish that you had that.
Georgie is another character I grew to really care for. She is confused and hurting and frustrating as hell at times. But her and Sam go through so much, and he messes up so so bad that it's hard to think of how they can ever come back from it. Their journey is a tough one. But once you realise that despite it all they are so in love, that they are so right for one another - any reluctance goes out the water. I found myself rooting for these two. When you get down to it, she was a bitch and he was a shit for what he did. And I think by the end of it they had both suffered enough.
You ever wondered where Tom got his craziness from? Meet Dominic and Grace: his father and grandmother. They aren't the most affectionate, and it's through seeing them that you notice why Tom struggles with showing emotion and letting people in. His whole family is a bit messed up in that way. But they are such characters that you can't help and love them anyway. When I first saw Dominic, it was eerie seeing how similar they were. The way they talk and walk, their tough outer shell but inner mushiness. Their cocky nature. Oh, and shit stirring -which happen to be one of their specialties.
You get to know Tom's habits too. He has this habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Of being a complete shit and doing everything possible to not show how much he cares. You see bits of it through Francesca's confused eyes, but now you really see what he's thinking when he acts that way. The thing with Tom is that he tries so hard to push you away and make you hate him because it scares him when he starts caring for you, because everyone that he loves keeps leaving him and he's afraid of being hurt again. And I think Francesca saw this from day one and that's why she waited for him to come to her. And I think he knows that. And I also think that because they have this mutual understanding, they will always love each other in a very different way.Tom has be to be my favourite character. I connected with him so quickly in this book, that he definitely is the person that I miss most when I don't read this book for a time. I should warn you, this boy is just hilarious. Really he is. He made me laugh so hard. And I felt like I finally got to know just who Tom Mackee is, which is something since he is such a freaking puzzle.
Luca and Anabel anyone? I love how he is going to be such a heart-breaker. It was a moment for me when they mentioned he was in year 10. I felt like I had just found out that my little brother was all grown up. Him and Anabel just made me grin. I see something happening there. And I love how Tom is pretty weary of him. He should be! Anabel is lovely and sensible and all voice of reason, the sanest out of her crazy family, as Joe said. Her and Tom share such a great relationship. But his emails mostly start with 'fugly', or something annoying which may seem a bit 'meh' from afar, but it is tinged with affection. I'm 20 and I still get those emails from my brother, so sorry Anabel, I don't think those kind of things ever go away when you're the little sister. *sighs*
Tara is feisty as ever. And although they converse through emails, I love how he really has to work hard to get her to talk to him. He knows he's messed up HARD, and it's fantastic to watch them slowly open up.
Justine! That girl is just so good that it's wrong. She really is Francesca's rock and just so kind and empathetic. I never really got how much she was there for Francesca until I reread SF. I can see why they are best friends now.
Siobhan needs to get her butt back, by the way. It is suckish seeing so less of her. :/
B (!!) (if you've read the book, you know who this is). You ,dude, need to tell me who the hell those girls are back home that you were talking about. Is it 'those girls'? Because if it is I need to know more!!! And thank you for making an appearance, because you, my friend, are awesome. Tell the gang I love and miss them. <3
There's something I'd like to mention. There were moments in the book that reminded of other moments in the her other books. (Or they seemed similar in a way to some moments in her other books.) I should have probably jotted them down at the time to remember them (notebook fail), but there was a soccer/football discussion which felt very much like a similar moment that happened in the gorgon. Now I don't mind it at all, if anything, it gets me all nostalgic about her books, but it's just something that I noticed and wanted to point out to any other reader that might have noticed?
Jimmy :) Hearing the littlest things about him made me want to reach out to him. It freaks me out that he must have been in so much pain and there's nothing that the gang could have done about it So when I read a post telling me that the real Jimmy is in Ireland and that Melina Marchetta knew him as a teen and that she recently saw his profile on facebook where his interest included 'laughing at people when they fall down' (which is just such a jimmy thing, she says) and that he is happy now even though she never thought he would be -my heart soars and I want to see and know this jimmy and tell him that all us Marchetta girls absolutely adore him.
You didn't forget the sex scene, did you? MIND. FREAKING. BLOWN.. I felt like My heart was in complete overdrive and it was such a moment that I wish that these moments were done as perfectly and as beautifully as it was done in this book. I''m still not over it.
Just read it. I guarantee that you will be blown away.
“Logical Tom begs emotional stupid dickhead Tom not to ask the question.
'Are you alone?' he asks quietly.
He hears her breathing so close to his ear.
'Yes.'
'Good,' he says, his voice croaky. 'I'll sleep like a baby.”
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“She's tired and leans her head on his shoulder, which is the resting place for all their heads, but when Justine and Siobhan and Francesca use his body so shamelessly he doesn't feel the need to turn his head and press his mouth against their hair..
Tom wants oblivion.
He's 'aiming for oblivion' because he is sick of everything.
His uncle Joe died a few years back and he has never been quite the same since. He is still full of anger and grief and bitterness. Worse still, he stayed behind when his mother went away with his sister, Anabel, after his dads drinking went from bad to worse.
He stayed because he could not bring himself to leave his father when he knew he needed him most.
But only weeks later his father left him too.
So he broke up with Tara Finke, because being around her hurt too much, because he was afraid she could never fix him, and he left the gang because he could not find the words to speak to any of them anymore.
Tom pushes away every friend that he loves, and the family that he loves keeps leaving him. When we meet him he's high on drugs, split his head, living with some idiots and indulging in one night stands.
But when he wakes up, it's Tara that he calls for and Tara who he wants to save him because he needs saving, and it's Francesca, who he hasn't talked to for years, that is sitting by his side with sadness and pity in her eyes that he can't stand.
Francesca really shines in this book. Her determination to hold on to Tom, to be there for him when he is horrible to her astounds me. She is so patient because she knows that he is sad and hurting and that she needs to have faith, and she keeps hoping that her Tom will come back to her and the girls. And when he does, reluctantly, she is scared and weary but she refuses to leave him. You can think what you want of Francesca, but if you need her when you are in dire need, she will not hesitate to be there. I don't know if friends like that even exist anymore.
Although I've read this before, it still shakes me up how different Tom is. How this laughing, dorky, crude, funny boy changed into this different angry hurting person so fast. It makes you take a step back because if you've read SF just a few days before (like I did), seeing him so different is almost overwhelming.
Marchetta steals my heart with these characters. Finally, this time around, I got to see Will in another light and realise that he really is good for her. And that he might be a prick at times and full of it, but he also has a lot of heart. And he might not be the most affectionate in a crowd but if you take a closer look, you'll see that he understands her like no one else does. When she is down he tells her 'we'll get through this' and when she is shivering and cold he takes her hand in his and puts it in his pocket to keep her warm. And even if you look back to SF when she asks him if he thinks anyone knows if she alive, he doesn't hesitate to tell her that he does.
It's very easy to dislike Will but probably even harder to like him because he so easily comes across as an ass. But it also took me this time around to also realise why him and Tom don't get along. Or why he doesn't like Tom anyway. It's because they both love her. And I think the two are still working on sharing her with the other.
I have a bone to pick with a few of them though. Tom's mother and father, for example. I think it's completely out of line how both their children suffer because they're making them live worlds apart, and then let them think they're going to have a divorce yet they don't even have the decency to tell them the truth. I don't even know what to say to that. I pretty much hate the two for it.
Seeing things through Tom's eyes is so painful. With Francesca when she sees Will and how she views the world might be blurred and dark but there's also still that innocence about her. When there's a moment where Will has her against the wall in SF. It was all very swoony and such but when Tom sees it in PS, I was a bit like 'oh' and then 'OH MY GOD' and then 'what the hell, look away, Aly!'. Because I wasn't ready to see it so bluntly and raw through his eyes. It also made me realise that Francesca is no longer the young girl I always viewed her as. She's a woman. And seeing someone grow up so fast is kind of hard when you grow to love them.
When you read about couples in some books, you always tend to think what they have is sweet and nice and leave it at that. Because at the end of the day you know it's just fiction. But in this book, it's so damn realistic that you find yourself intrigued and completely in love with these guys, but at the same time, when they have these moments, you feel like you're intruding, because it's so personal and perfect and wonderful that a part of you can't help but wish that you had that.
Georgie is another character I grew to really care for. She is confused and hurting and frustrating as hell at times. But her and Sam go through so much, and he messes up so so bad that it's hard to think of how they can ever come back from it. Their journey is a tough one. But once you realise that despite it all they are so in love, that they are so right for one another - any reluctance goes out the water. I found myself rooting for these two. When you get down to it, she was a bitch and he was a shit for what he did. And I think by the end of it they had both suffered enough.
You ever wondered where Tom got his craziness from? Meet Dominic and Grace: his father and grandmother. They aren't the most affectionate, and it's through seeing them that you notice why Tom struggles with showing emotion and letting people in. His whole family is a bit messed up in that way. But they are such characters that you can't help and love them anyway. When I first saw Dominic, it was eerie seeing how similar they were. The way they talk and walk, their tough outer shell but inner mushiness. Their cocky nature. Oh, and shit stirring -which happen to be one of their specialties.
You get to know Tom's habits too. He has this habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Of being a complete shit and doing everything possible to not show how much he cares. You see bits of it through Francesca's confused eyes, but now you really see what he's thinking when he acts that way. The thing with Tom is that he tries so hard to push you away and make you hate him because it scares him when he starts caring for you, because everyone that he loves keeps leaving him and he's afraid of being hurt again. And I think Francesca saw this from day one and that's why she waited for him to come to her. And I think he knows that. And I also think that because they have this mutual understanding, they will always love each other in a very different way.Tom has be to be my favourite character. I connected with him so quickly in this book, that he definitely is the person that I miss most when I don't read this book for a time. I should warn you, this boy is just hilarious. Really he is. He made me laugh so hard. And I felt like I finally got to know just who Tom Mackee is, which is something since he is such a freaking puzzle.
Luca and Anabel anyone? I love how he is going to be such a heart-breaker. It was a moment for me when they mentioned he was in year 10. I felt like I had just found out that my little brother was all grown up. Him and Anabel just made me grin. I see something happening there. And I love how Tom is pretty weary of him. He should be! Anabel is lovely and sensible and all voice of reason, the sanest out of her crazy family, as Joe said. Her and Tom share such a great relationship. But his emails mostly start with 'fugly', or something annoying which may seem a bit 'meh' from afar, but it is tinged with affection. I'm 20 and I still get those emails from my brother, so sorry Anabel, I don't think those kind of things ever go away when you're the little sister. *sighs*
Tara is feisty as ever. And although they converse through emails, I love how he really has to work hard to get her to talk to him. He knows he's messed up HARD, and it's fantastic to watch them slowly open up.
Justine! That girl is just so good that it's wrong. She really is Francesca's rock and just so kind and empathetic. I never really got how much she was there for Francesca until I reread SF. I can see why they are best friends now.
Siobhan needs to get her butt back, by the way. It is suckish seeing so less of her. :/
B (!!) (if you've read the book, you know who this is). You ,dude, need to tell me who the hell those girls are back home that you were talking about. Is it 'those girls'? Because if it is I need to know more!!! And thank you for making an appearance, because you, my friend, are awesome. Tell the gang I love and miss them. <3
There's something I'd like to mention. There were moments in the book that reminded of other moments in the her other books. (Or they seemed similar in a way to some moments in her other books.) I should have probably jotted them down at the time to remember them (notebook fail), but there was a soccer/football discussion which felt very much like a similar moment that happened in the gorgon. Now I don't mind it at all, if anything, it gets me all nostalgic about her books, but it's just something that I noticed and wanted to point out to any other reader that might have noticed?
Jimmy :) Hearing the littlest things about him made me want to reach out to him. It freaks me out that he must have been in so much pain and there's nothing that the gang could have done about it So when I read a post telling me that the real Jimmy is in Ireland and that Melina Marchetta knew him as a teen and that she recently saw his profile on facebook where his interest included 'laughing at people when they fall down' (which is just such a jimmy thing, she says) and that he is happy now even though she never thought he would be -my heart soars and I want to see and know this jimmy and tell him that all us Marchetta girls absolutely adore him.
You didn't forget the sex scene, did you? MIND. FREAKING. BLOWN.. I felt like My heart was in complete overdrive and it was such a moment that I wish that these moments were done as perfectly and as beautifully as it was done in this book. I''m still not over it.
Just read it. I guarantee that you will be blown away.
“Logical Tom begs emotional stupid dickhead Tom not to ask the question.
'Are you alone?' he asks quietly.
He hears her breathing so close to his ear.
'Yes.'
'Good,' he says, his voice croaky. 'I'll sleep like a baby.”
May 21, 2011
Wow. My heart must be made of stone to give this book three stars.
Five years have passed since the days of Saving Francesca and Tom Mackee is a total mess. He's lost it all: dropped out of school, lost Tara Finke's heart, lost his uncle in a terrorist attack in London, lost all trust in his alcoholic's father, lost him mom and sister who moved to Brisbane and lost his mind getting high on various substances. He's lost his friends too, Francesca, Justine, Siobhan, Tara, Jimmy. Actually, he dumped them. Also... well, the story is pretty complicated and it involves all of his quite dysfunctional family, especially his father and aunt whose lives have changed after losing their brother and who need saving just as much as Tom. This is a book about redemption and how, after touching the bottom and even digging a little bit, it is through love that people can find and hope and trust in themselves to resurface.
The truth is, after reading Saving Francesca only a few days ago and knowing this book features the same set of characters, I was fairly sure it would be along the lines of the other book, with the same tenor.
I was very wrong though, this book is totally different from its companion which really, if you think about it, stands to reason, considering Francesca and Tom are two different people with different lives and therefore their stories are told with different voices.
Marchetta is, truly, a perfect observer of human emotions. She nails them down and describes them with a sharpness and simplicity that unsettle me . When I read some of the sentences all I could think was: Why didn't I think of this before? Some of my favorites:
"Come and have something to eat," he says quietly to Georgie. Tom notices that he does that a lot. Speaks quietly. It's almost as if Sam believes that if he raises his voice, she'll notice he's around and then she'll remember the past and tell him to get lost. So, these days, Sam speaks quietly.
It's the joy of smoking for him. Isolation doesn't have to be explained when you're leaning against a brick wall with a cigarette in your hand. Rolling your own is better. It takes more time, and Tom has all the time to spare.
Truly, this book is heartbreaking and so real, it makes me totally jealous of Tom because, even if his life is pretty messy and with his family with complications, I wish I had friends like his. True ones, who don't ask for anything back and see right through you.
So why the three stars?
Well, my first problem with the book came right at the beginning, when most characters are introduced. The more I kept reading, more names appeared, the more I got confused as to how the MacKee-Finch family was composed. I was even tempted to draw a kind of genealogical tree to figure out the details. Plus, I don't know if it was only me, but sometimes there were scene or dialogues where Marchetta indicates "his father" and in the room there are Tom, Bill and Dom and I couldn't really figure out who the author was talking about. Plus there's TOM, DOM, TOM Finch senior who died in Vietnam... a bit confusing to me, it took me almost 80 pages to finally fix all characters in my mind.
My second problem had to do with the narrative technique. This 3rd person alternating POVs - Tom's and Georgie's - did not work well for me. I've come to the conclusion that there are a few authors whose 3rd person I don't like and I am afraid that Marchetta might be one of them. Both Jellicoe Road and Saving Francesca were in the 1st person and I found them brilliant. In this book, some scenes fell flat, awkward and I'm pretty sure it was because of the 3rd person.
Talking about awkward, I come to the last problem I had with the book. Because, to me, there were some undeniably awkward parts. I'm thinking it might have to do with symbolism and I don't do well symbolism. There were at least three different occasions in which talk of a damn table came up. Now, I might be interested in knowing Dominic was making a table out of wood in order to accommodate the whole extended family but that they have to have a family dialogue three times about it and just to say it needs to be finished, felt just outright weird to me. Was it because it might be that they felt the need to reunite their broken family? Was the table meant to be the symbol of said reunited family?
And that wasn't the only case; I might understand the deep and gut-wrenching grief the characters felt for Joe, died in a Tube terrorist attack in London. I did not understand the weird parallel Joe's and Tom Finch's death had, Tom Finch being the father of Dominic and Georgie, who had fallen in Vietnam some 30 years earlier and that they barely remembered. The importance of bringing his bones back to Australia, not only for the family but for his fellow soldiers as well was just a mystery to me, not to be disrespectful. Again there might be a certain parallel here between their inability to bring back Joe and their grandfather standing as a symbol but...
So for me, there were the parts with the friends, Francesca, Justine and Ned and the story with Tara - and let's not forget Mohrin the Ignorer - which were highly enjoyable, intelligent, witty, laugh out loud parts. I mean,
"Last night", their mother explains to Anabel patiently, "Tom received a call from Tara saying she was flying into Sydney an hour before he's flying out to Hanoi. So they are going to miss seeing each other because Tara will be gone by the time Tom returns. And they really want to see each other."
He was very impressed by his mother's ability to articulate it. In his head it had been a mess of WHAT? WHY? WHAT DID I DO? SHIT. FUCK. WHAT THE HELL?
And then there were the parts which concerned the MacKee-Finch family and those were different and somehow more confusing and less enjoyable to me and definitely more depressing. The Marchetta I love is in the other parts, in the other books.
I'll see what happens with Looking for Alibrandi.
Follow me at NightReader
Five years have passed since the days of Saving Francesca and Tom Mackee is a total mess. He's lost it all: dropped out of school, lost Tara Finke's heart, lost his uncle in a terrorist attack in London, lost all trust in his alcoholic's father, lost him mom and sister who moved to Brisbane and lost his mind getting high on various substances. He's lost his friends too, Francesca, Justine, Siobhan, Tara, Jimmy. Actually, he dumped them. Also... well, the story is pretty complicated and it involves all of his quite dysfunctional family, especially his father and aunt whose lives have changed after losing their brother and who need saving just as much as Tom. This is a book about redemption and how, after touching the bottom and even digging a little bit, it is through love that people can find and hope and trust in themselves to resurface.
The truth is, after reading Saving Francesca only a few days ago and knowing this book features the same set of characters, I was fairly sure it would be along the lines of the other book, with the same tenor.
I was very wrong though, this book is totally different from its companion which really, if you think about it, stands to reason, considering Francesca and Tom are two different people with different lives and therefore their stories are told with different voices.
Marchetta is, truly, a perfect observer of human emotions. She nails them down and describes them with a sharpness and simplicity that unsettle me . When I read some of the sentences all I could think was: Why didn't I think of this before? Some of my favorites:
"Come and have something to eat," he says quietly to Georgie. Tom notices that he does that a lot. Speaks quietly. It's almost as if Sam believes that if he raises his voice, she'll notice he's around and then she'll remember the past and tell him to get lost. So, these days, Sam speaks quietly.
It's the joy of smoking for him. Isolation doesn't have to be explained when you're leaning against a brick wall with a cigarette in your hand. Rolling your own is better. It takes more time, and Tom has all the time to spare.
Truly, this book is heartbreaking and so real, it makes me totally jealous of Tom because, even if his life is pretty messy and with his family with complications, I wish I had friends like his. True ones, who don't ask for anything back and see right through you.
So why the three stars?
Well, my first problem with the book came right at the beginning, when most characters are introduced. The more I kept reading, more names appeared, the more I got confused as to how the MacKee-Finch family was composed. I was even tempted to draw a kind of genealogical tree to figure out the details. Plus, I don't know if it was only me, but sometimes there were scene or dialogues where Marchetta indicates "his father" and in the room there are Tom, Bill and Dom and I couldn't really figure out who the author was talking about. Plus there's TOM, DOM, TOM Finch senior who died in Vietnam... a bit confusing to me, it took me almost 80 pages to finally fix all characters in my mind.
My second problem had to do with the narrative technique. This 3rd person alternating POVs - Tom's and Georgie's - did not work well for me. I've come to the conclusion that there are a few authors whose 3rd person I don't like and I am afraid that Marchetta might be one of them. Both Jellicoe Road and Saving Francesca were in the 1st person and I found them brilliant. In this book, some scenes fell flat, awkward and I'm pretty sure it was because of the 3rd person.
Talking about awkward, I come to the last problem I had with the book. Because, to me, there were some undeniably awkward parts. I'm thinking it might have to do with symbolism and I don't do well symbolism. There were at least three different occasions in which talk of a damn table came up. Now, I might be interested in knowing Dominic was making a table out of wood in order to accommodate the whole extended family but that they have to have a family dialogue three times about it and just to say it needs to be finished, felt just outright weird to me. Was it because it might be that they felt the need to reunite their broken family? Was the table meant to be the symbol of said reunited family?
And that wasn't the only case; I might understand the deep and gut-wrenching grief the characters felt for Joe, died in a Tube terrorist attack in London. I did not understand the weird parallel Joe's and Tom Finch's death had, Tom Finch being the father of Dominic and Georgie, who had fallen in Vietnam some 30 years earlier and that they barely remembered. The importance of bringing his bones back to Australia, not only for the family but for his fellow soldiers as well was just a mystery to me, not to be disrespectful. Again there might be a certain parallel here between their inability to bring back Joe and their grandfather standing as a symbol but...
So for me, there were the parts with the friends, Francesca, Justine and Ned and the story with Tara - and let's not forget Mohrin the Ignorer - which were highly enjoyable, intelligent, witty, laugh out loud parts. I mean,
"Last night", their mother explains to Anabel patiently, "Tom received a call from Tara saying she was flying into Sydney an hour before he's flying out to Hanoi. So they are going to miss seeing each other because Tara will be gone by the time Tom returns. And they really want to see each other."
He was very impressed by his mother's ability to articulate it. In his head it had been a mess of WHAT? WHY? WHAT DID I DO? SHIT. FUCK. WHAT THE HELL?
And then there were the parts which concerned the MacKee-Finch family and those were different and somehow more confusing and less enjoyable to me and definitely more depressing. The Marchetta I love is in the other parts, in the other books.
I'll see what happens with Looking for Alibrandi.
Follow me at NightReader
April 23, 2019
THIS BOOK JUST GETS LIFE AND LOVE AND GRIEF AND FAMILY
------------------
Second read and lost it on page one, line one.
Man, was it ever hard to reread this book knowing what's coming and sometimes not remembering what's coming, only that pain definitely is. The first quarter of this book is a nonstop barrage of punches to the gut and the rest is more of the slow mo variety. No wonder I finished it in a day the first time around and now had to take breaks in between. (Definitely not taking such long breaks during the next reread, though). (We'll see).
P.S. It's kind of hilarious how relatable Tom's, the village idiot, general feelings towards Will Trombal are.
------------------
I FINISHED AND NOW I'M GOING TO CRY ABOUT IT AND ITS PERFECTION (EVEN THOUGH I THOUGHT THERE'D BE MORE BECAUSE EBOOKS CAN BE MISLEADING LIKE THAT) TO SLEEP.
(AS IF I HAVEN'T BEEN CRYING FROM THE MOMENT I READ THE FIRST LINE).
(AS IF I DIDN'T FALL IN LOVE WITH THE BOOK ON PAGE FOUR EVEN BEFORE I REACHED THE DAMNED PAGE BECAUSE ELLIS TWEETED IT TO ME).
THIS OTP HAVE FUCKED ME UP.
------------------
Second read and lost it on page one, line one.
Man, was it ever hard to reread this book knowing what's coming and sometimes not remembering what's coming, only that pain definitely is. The first quarter of this book is a nonstop barrage of punches to the gut and the rest is more of the slow mo variety. No wonder I finished it in a day the first time around and now had to take breaks in between. (Definitely not taking such long breaks during the next reread, though). (We'll see).
P.S. It's kind of hilarious how relatable Tom's, the village idiot, general feelings towards Will Trombal are.
------------------
I FINISHED AND NOW I'M GOING TO CRY ABOUT IT AND ITS PERFECTION (EVEN THOUGH I THOUGHT THERE'D BE MORE BECAUSE EBOOKS CAN BE MISLEADING LIKE THAT) TO SLEEP.
(AS IF I HAVEN'T BEEN CRYING FROM THE MOMENT I READ THE FIRST LINE).
(AS IF I DIDN'T FALL IN LOVE WITH THE BOOK ON PAGE FOUR EVEN BEFORE I REACHED THE DAMNED PAGE BECAUSE ELLIS TWEETED IT TO ME).
THIS OTP HAVE FUCKED ME UP.
March 2, 2011
And yet again, another one of Melina Marchetta’s novels leaves me utterly breathless!
Alright guys, buckle up, this is going to get sappy. :)
When I started reading The Piper’s Son I was a little confused, I had trouble keeping up with who was related to whom and I had a hard time finding my way back into the story. I already started to panic and was worried that I might not feel the love this time but I told myself to be patient because so far, it had always started out this way for me with Marchetta’s novels. At first I’m like "hmm, I don’t get what all the fuss is about" but then, all of the sudden, it hits me like a sledgehammer and I’m caught up in the story to the point that I simply can’t put the book down. And of course, that’s exactly what happened again.
I honestly don’t know how to explain this but Marchetta has this way of letting her characters do these small acts of kindness which may seem insignificant to others, but they always hit me with such force that it knocks the breath right out of me and I find myself bawling my eyes out. It’s not like in all those fantasy novels where it’s all about a love so strong that you would happily suffer in hell for all eternity if it would save the life of your beloved. No, what Marchetta shows us is the real thing. Honest and raw love. Love between siblings, love between parent and child, love between friends and love between lovers and she doesn’t only show us, she makes us feel it. IMO she does that in a way like no other author can.
Her characters are not perfect, they are perfectly flawed and she doesn’t wrap up her stories with a pretty little bow in the end because that’s not how it usually goes in real life. Her characters, her stories, everything about Melina Marchetta’s novels just feels real.
Thanks to Nic for sending this book over to Germany and thanks to Olivia for lending it to me.
#2 Aussie YA reading challenge.
September 20, 2011
"He comes from a broken home. The Mackees can’t be put back together again. There are too many pieces of them missing".
Without a shadow of a doubt, The Piper’s Son is my favourite Melina Marchetta book so far. It had this rawness about it that could touch you so deep, it was achy, and was full of so much heartfelt emotion seriously my feelings were all over the place with this book.
Thomas Mackee, do you know what you’ve done to me?
Tom had closed himself off from everyone after having lost his uncle Joe two years ago, Tom’s dad not being able to cope with the loss turned to alcohol as his form of solace, leaving his wife with no other choice but to walk out on him, eventually Tom was also left on his own. Tom also shut out Tara and his other friends, he turned to find comfort wherever he could sometimes even with complete strangers and just generally getting wasted. My heart truly went out to Tom, he was suffocated with memories he couldn’t talk to anyone about and was just engulfed with sadness and loneliness.
What I liked about The Piper’s Son;
I enjoyed reading the alternative pov’s from Georgie and Tom; it was truly moving reading about their grief they had to deal with. It was great having most of the characters back, Frankie, Justine, Siobhan and Tara (“the four horsewomen of apocalypse”) and Will Trombal. I loved the banter between Will and Tom, and how Tom always ended up winding Will up. Jimmy was always my favourite character from Saving Francesca, so I was quite disappointed that he wasn’t in the story.
Despite The Piper’s Son being really intense and emotional, it was also full of endless humour which had me cracking up on so many occasions. When Dom, Tom and Bill went jogging, Bill and his lack of shorts and Dom with his tae kwon do movements, Saint Trombal, Nanni Grace and Bill and his swearing in front of Callum.
I enjoyed The Piper’s Son so much that I actually took my time reading this book; normally I just devour a book up really quickly. But with The Piper’s Son I couldn’t I wanted to savour each word and every single page and I just didn’t want to let Tom or this book go.
I think I’ve said this on numerous occasions already but Melina Marchetta has quickly become one of my favourite authors, her books that I have read Saving Francesca and Jellicoe Road I’ve ended up loving each one more and more, they’re those kind of books which you will continually cherish and re-read and never get tired of them. For me Marchetta’s books have always left me with a warm fuzzy feeling all over.
The Piper’s Son was everything I’d imagined and so much more. I don’t think my review could ever do it the justice it totally deserves. The only thing I can honestly say is go out and read this book, you won’t regret it!
Without a shadow of a doubt, The Piper’s Son is my favourite Melina Marchetta book so far. It had this rawness about it that could touch you so deep, it was achy, and was full of so much heartfelt emotion seriously my feelings were all over the place with this book.
Thomas Mackee, do you know what you’ve done to me?
Tom had closed himself off from everyone after having lost his uncle Joe two years ago, Tom’s dad not being able to cope with the loss turned to alcohol as his form of solace, leaving his wife with no other choice but to walk out on him, eventually Tom was also left on his own. Tom also shut out Tara and his other friends, he turned to find comfort wherever he could sometimes even with complete strangers and just generally getting wasted. My heart truly went out to Tom, he was suffocated with memories he couldn’t talk to anyone about and was just engulfed with sadness and loneliness.
What I liked about The Piper’s Son;
I enjoyed reading the alternative pov’s from Georgie and Tom; it was truly moving reading about their grief they had to deal with. It was great having most of the characters back, Frankie, Justine, Siobhan and Tara (“the four horsewomen of apocalypse”) and Will Trombal. I loved the banter between Will and Tom, and how Tom always ended up winding Will up. Jimmy was always my favourite character from Saving Francesca, so I was quite disappointed that he wasn’t in the story.
Despite The Piper’s Son being really intense and emotional, it was also full of endless humour which had me cracking up on so many occasions. When Dom, Tom and Bill went jogging, Bill and his lack of shorts and Dom with his tae kwon do movements, Saint Trombal, Nanni Grace and Bill and his swearing in front of Callum.
I enjoyed The Piper’s Son so much that I actually took my time reading this book; normally I just devour a book up really quickly. But with The Piper’s Son I couldn’t I wanted to savour each word and every single page and I just didn’t want to let Tom or this book go.
I think I’ve said this on numerous occasions already but Melina Marchetta has quickly become one of my favourite authors, her books that I have read Saving Francesca and Jellicoe Road I’ve ended up loving each one more and more, they’re those kind of books which you will continually cherish and re-read and never get tired of them. For me Marchetta’s books have always left me with a warm fuzzy feeling all over.
The Piper’s Son was everything I’d imagined and so much more. I don’t think my review could ever do it the justice it totally deserves. The only thing I can honestly say is go out and read this book, you won’t regret it!
April 1, 2024
✰ 3.75 stars ✰
“I met you at the cornerstone on the highway to bedlam.
Walked with you to the pinnacle, along that ledge to hell,
Traveled along the passageway of all things aching,
But would crawl with you if you wanted me to
On the steeple point to hope.”
“So we can tip the stars and hold the moon,
Graze the sun, and fate our chances.
But make it soon; our sorrow lingers
And time just seems to slip away.”
We all deal with grief in our own ways. Some bottle it up and let the emotions fester inside, some lash out in anger towards others, because they can't hurt the ones they're hurting for, and some simply go through life - listless, aimless, drowning their sorrows in drugs or emptiness - wallowing with the uncertainty that the life that was before it all crumbled is still something worth living for. When Tom Mackee and Georgie Finch lost someone they both held so very dear, it shattered a piece of themselves - taking away even the little light of happiness that they had held on to. After two years of gripping onto that grief as a lifeline, it takes a lot of patience and honesty, and a truly heartfelt and soulful rekindling of friendships and people for both of them to accept that when someone dies - your life doesn't have to end with them. 🙏🏻
“I’m no good for this baby if I’m all self-sacrifice and restraint, and nor are you.”
She stops speaking, knowing the power she possesses in this moment.
Wasn’t that what it was all about? Who grabs the power and holds on to it and uses it for the rest of their life?”
There are two sides of this story, but they run parallel with each other, because of their relationship with one another. Georgie and Tom's relationship was beautifully captured; so much love between aunt and nephew - so much family strife, but still effortlessly guarded by how deeply they cared for each other - love that needs no explanation from either of them. When Uncle Joe died, hearts were broken of many, including his older sister, Georgie, and his only nephew, Tom. The loneliness they both felt after his death greatly affected their present. I was a bit surprised by Georgie's perspective, because it was an aspect not much shed upon, but portrayed convincingly so. She's in a conflicting situation - pregnant by her cheating ex-lover - and her emotions are at a war with one another. 😔 What is the right course of action - what is the future she wishes to have - can she move on from her brother's death, how does she define herself as capable of being a good mother in the future, if she can't even accept the child that was the result of the affair her lover had with another woman? What keeps it all together is the balanced way the author navigates her thoughts with each passing day; how every day is a chance to learn something new about herself and find a way to better herself for it. It's that prevailing hope that she won't lose to these conflicting thoughts is where the story shines in its element; how the only way to overpower those haunting feelings of anger and bitterness is to overshadow it with love and acceptance and most of all, forgiveness. ❤️🩹❤️🩹
Forgiveness is such a prevalent theme in The Piper's Son. Not only on the side of Georgie forgiving Sam for his egregious misdemeanor that cost him the love and respect of the only woman he's ever loved, but how Tom has to learn how to forgive himself and the ones who have broken his heart. Joe was his beloved Uncle - he loved him to the moon and back; his death irrevocably destroyed him. 'Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.' The two years since that horrific news, his life has been in a spiral - with the addition of losing his chance with the only girl who has ever meant something to him, and watching his father, his hero, his piper - the man he would follow till the ends of the earth, break down and walk away from the family he's claimed to have loved. 🥺 'Nothing comes of Nothing.' These heart-breaking feelings leave him in a bitter, moody, and emotional state - shattering his spirit entirely, and honestly, I don't blame him. I don't blame him for being angry at the world and being a dark cloud to be around, or wasting away the prime of his youth without having any passion for doing anything purposeful or meaningful in his life.😢
But, you know, what other theme is prevalent throughout the story? Friendship and family - friends who see you at your worst and forgive you for your absolute worst. Who remembers you at your best, who held your heart when you shined the most, who loved you at your most vulnerable. Family who still loves you, family who wants to see you succeed, family who cry when they see you, because they don't know if they ever would again. Tom needed those reminders so desperately that it in fact, was his saving grace. 'This is about his son. He left you, Tom, and we almost lost you.' 😥 His saving grace from the fall he inflicted upon himself. He gives off the impression of someone who doesn't care about himself or anyone, when all he's ever done is care and feel. His relationship with his father is one his ultimate tests, because the evidence of how much he loves him is so very evident - painstakingly clear. 'Tom’s hero fell off a pedestal way too high and he smashed all over the place.' He is, after all, the piper's son; and that's what hurts even more. He may have no filter, he may be moody and hard to be around, but some people have difficulty expressing their love and affection in the ways other people are accustomed to. And for those who can see beyond that - who can recognize the potential and love he is still capable of - are those worth having forever. 💟
“Every word she mutters or writes to him is a reminder of what he lost and what he needs to get back, somehow. But there’s too much to fix up and he doesn’t know how to go about doing it.”
I love the emotional personal connection the author conveys with her characters; there is active interaction - people are communicating - not effortlessly, but determinedly. It feels like it's a real family coping with a real-life dilemma, one that is still protected by the love they have for each other. Despite the emotional punches that were dealt out, the writing still lacked a certain finesse to it, to make it a more agreeably pleasant read. I suppose, mainly due to the fact that there was a lot of re-telling of past events that made it a bit harder to connect with the present. There is again, a really tender and heart-felt balance between subtle humor and raw feeling that I appreciated. A lot of the story was also captured in corresponding emails between Tom and Tara, but they were also, surprisingly, some of my favorite parts. 🫂 'He feels shock at first. Perhaps a bit of anger. He’s stunned. But his heart’s hammering with hope. In Tara Finke language, that conversation was progress.' Where he shed his armor, and let himself be honest and open - trying to earn his forgiveness for that one mistake that made him lose his chance with the one girl that made him feel alive - there was so much heart in them. 🥲 And, Chapter 33's emails - beautiful. 🤌🏼🤌🏼 Such raw emotion - the way Marchetta captured the intensity of how their relationship had been based on that one-and-a-half night stand' alone, and how it broke them completely, followed by Tom's response to her - L.O.V.E.D I.T. 🥹🥹
Seeing the whole gang again is always a joy. They haven't forgotten what it took to become the strong unit they were and I loved the little details that were shared about the time in between since Francesca's mental breakdown. Tom has a deep kindred spirit kind of bond with the girls and it was felt and I loved it. Francesca carries her heart on her sleeve and Will was there, again; in such a brief stay, the author captured so beautifully their relationship - how much they still care so deeply for each other - 'yeah, well both my brains are connected and one is always reminding the other of you.' 🥰 Haha, loved his conversations with Tom so much! So much tension and annoyance, but perfectly captures how vastly different they are from each other, but still are connected by their experience with women. 'That’s the difference between you and me, Tom. I’d go back to the moment it all fell apart and I’d start there.' 😊 They've come a long way since their Year 11 days - 21 and the world is at their fingertips. Even the new cast was a delight - Ned and Mohsin were exactly what Tom needed to bring him out of that dark shell he had cocooned himself in, and watching him bare his soul with lyrics for the girls to sing to - heart-breaking. The vibes of the early 2000s was also such a treat; seeing people use MSN Messenger and MySpace seems like a flashback to a time long gone and I loved being a part of it. 👌🏻👌🏻
And I am so happy that Jimmy has a story for himself, too! I knew that there is NO WAY she can just address him as an unknown mystery and not give him his own closure! It's funny that Marchetta never labeled Francesca and Co.'s books as a part of a series, but the fact that she chose to continue them must mean she knows how special these characters have become to her readers. Seeing them overcome their hurdles and face their challenges together makes for truly a memorable read. 🤍
“I met you at the cornerstone on the highway to bedlam.
Walked with you to the pinnacle, along that ledge to hell,
Traveled along the passageway of all things aching,
But would crawl with you if you wanted me to
On the steeple point to hope.”
“So we can tip the stars and hold the moon,
Graze the sun, and fate our chances.
But make it soon; our sorrow lingers
And time just seems to slip away.”
We all deal with grief in our own ways. Some bottle it up and let the emotions fester inside, some lash out in anger towards others, because they can't hurt the ones they're hurting for, and some simply go through life - listless, aimless, drowning their sorrows in drugs or emptiness - wallowing with the uncertainty that the life that was before it all crumbled is still something worth living for. When Tom Mackee and Georgie Finch lost someone they both held so very dear, it shattered a piece of themselves - taking away even the little light of happiness that they had held on to. After two years of gripping onto that grief as a lifeline, it takes a lot of patience and honesty, and a truly heartfelt and soulful rekindling of friendships and people for both of them to accept that when someone dies - your life doesn't have to end with them. 🙏🏻
“I’m no good for this baby if I’m all self-sacrifice and restraint, and nor are you.”
She stops speaking, knowing the power she possesses in this moment.
Wasn’t that what it was all about? Who grabs the power and holds on to it and uses it for the rest of their life?”
There are two sides of this story, but they run parallel with each other, because of their relationship with one another. Georgie and Tom's relationship was beautifully captured; so much love between aunt and nephew - so much family strife, but still effortlessly guarded by how deeply they cared for each other - love that needs no explanation from either of them. When Uncle Joe died, hearts were broken of many, including his older sister, Georgie, and his only nephew, Tom. The loneliness they both felt after his death greatly affected their present. I was a bit surprised by Georgie's perspective, because it was an aspect not much shed upon, but portrayed convincingly so. She's in a conflicting situation - pregnant by her cheating ex-lover - and her emotions are at a war with one another. 😔 What is the right course of action - what is the future she wishes to have - can she move on from her brother's death, how does she define herself as capable of being a good mother in the future, if she can't even accept the child that was the result of the affair her lover had with another woman? What keeps it all together is the balanced way the author navigates her thoughts with each passing day; how every day is a chance to learn something new about herself and find a way to better herself for it. It's that prevailing hope that she won't lose to these conflicting thoughts is where the story shines in its element; how the only way to overpower those haunting feelings of anger and bitterness is to overshadow it with love and acceptance and most of all, forgiveness. ❤️🩹❤️🩹
Forgiveness is such a prevalent theme in The Piper's Son. Not only on the side of Georgie forgiving Sam for his egregious misdemeanor that cost him the love and respect of the only woman he's ever loved, but how Tom has to learn how to forgive himself and the ones who have broken his heart. Joe was his beloved Uncle - he loved him to the moon and back; his death irrevocably destroyed him. 'Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.' The two years since that horrific news, his life has been in a spiral - with the addition of losing his chance with the only girl who has ever meant something to him, and watching his father, his hero, his piper - the man he would follow till the ends of the earth, break down and walk away from the family he's claimed to have loved. 🥺 'Nothing comes of Nothing.' These heart-breaking feelings leave him in a bitter, moody, and emotional state - shattering his spirit entirely, and honestly, I don't blame him. I don't blame him for being angry at the world and being a dark cloud to be around, or wasting away the prime of his youth without having any passion for doing anything purposeful or meaningful in his life.😢
But, you know, what other theme is prevalent throughout the story? Friendship and family - friends who see you at your worst and forgive you for your absolute worst. Who remembers you at your best, who held your heart when you shined the most, who loved you at your most vulnerable. Family who still loves you, family who wants to see you succeed, family who cry when they see you, because they don't know if they ever would again. Tom needed those reminders so desperately that it in fact, was his saving grace. 'This is about his son. He left you, Tom, and we almost lost you.' 😥 His saving grace from the fall he inflicted upon himself. He gives off the impression of someone who doesn't care about himself or anyone, when all he's ever done is care and feel. His relationship with his father is one his ultimate tests, because the evidence of how much he loves him is so very evident - painstakingly clear. 'Tom’s hero fell off a pedestal way too high and he smashed all over the place.' He is, after all, the piper's son; and that's what hurts even more. He may have no filter, he may be moody and hard to be around, but some people have difficulty expressing their love and affection in the ways other people are accustomed to. And for those who can see beyond that - who can recognize the potential and love he is still capable of - are those worth having forever. 💟
“Every word she mutters or writes to him is a reminder of what he lost and what he needs to get back, somehow. But there’s too much to fix up and he doesn’t know how to go about doing it.”
I love the emotional personal connection the author conveys with her characters; there is active interaction - people are communicating - not effortlessly, but determinedly. It feels like it's a real family coping with a real-life dilemma, one that is still protected by the love they have for each other. Despite the emotional punches that were dealt out, the writing still lacked a certain finesse to it, to make it a more agreeably pleasant read. I suppose, mainly due to the fact that there was a lot of re-telling of past events that made it a bit harder to connect with the present. There is again, a really tender and heart-felt balance between subtle humor and raw feeling that I appreciated. A lot of the story was also captured in corresponding emails between Tom and Tara, but they were also, surprisingly, some of my favorite parts. 🫂 'He feels shock at first. Perhaps a bit of anger. He’s stunned. But his heart’s hammering with hope. In Tara Finke language, that conversation was progress.' Where he shed his armor, and let himself be honest and open - trying to earn his forgiveness for that one mistake that made him lose his chance with the one girl that made him feel alive - there was so much heart in them. 🥲 And, Chapter 33's emails - beautiful. 🤌🏼🤌🏼 Such raw emotion - the way Marchetta captured the intensity of how their relationship had been based on that one-and-a-half night stand' alone, and how it broke them completely, followed by Tom's response to her - L.O.V.E.D I.T. 🥹🥹
Seeing the whole gang again is always a joy. They haven't forgotten what it took to become the strong unit they were and I loved the little details that were shared about the time in between since Francesca's mental breakdown. Tom has a deep kindred spirit kind of bond with the girls and it was felt and I loved it. Francesca carries her heart on her sleeve and Will was there, again; in such a brief stay, the author captured so beautifully their relationship - how much they still care so deeply for each other - 'yeah, well both my brains are connected and one is always reminding the other of you.' 🥰 Haha, loved his conversations with Tom so much! So much tension and annoyance, but perfectly captures how vastly different they are from each other, but still are connected by their experience with women. 'That’s the difference between you and me, Tom. I’d go back to the moment it all fell apart and I’d start there.' 😊 They've come a long way since their Year 11 days - 21 and the world is at their fingertips. Even the new cast was a delight - Ned and Mohsin were exactly what Tom needed to bring him out of that dark shell he had cocooned himself in, and watching him bare his soul with lyrics for the girls to sing to - heart-breaking. The vibes of the early 2000s was also such a treat; seeing people use MSN Messenger and MySpace seems like a flashback to a time long gone and I loved being a part of it. 👌🏻👌🏻
And I am so happy that Jimmy has a story for himself, too! I knew that there is NO WAY she can just address him as an unknown mystery and not give him his own closure! It's funny that Marchetta never labeled Francesca and Co.'s books as a part of a series, but the fact that she chose to continue them must mean she knows how special these characters have become to her readers. Seeing them overcome their hurdles and face their challenges together makes for truly a memorable read. 🤍
April 12, 2015
12/18/14 This is on sale on amazon for $1.99, great time to pick it up
http://www.amazon.com/Pipers-Son-Meli...
4.5 Super Stars
Melina Marchette is the only author I’ve found that can break and squish my heart more times than I can count in a book and make me love every minute of it and ask for more. The stories she tells about families that are strong and loving but have been broken by a tragedy and are trying to pick up the pieces again draw you in to the point you never want to leave. The only thing wrong with this book is that it ended.
“But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.”
When you lose someone in an unexpected and sudden way it can affect everyone who knew that person it ripples and radiates out like a pebble thrown on still water or more like a dozen pebbles each creating their own ripples that crisscross and distort as they touch one another. The Piper’s Son explores that from the perspective of two pebbles Tom and Georgie.
Georgie’s younger brother and Tom’s Uncle Joe died in a terrorist attack in London two years ago. Since then their lives have been turned upside down and inside out. This is the story of the point when everyone starts to put things back together.
“Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.”
I found so many great insightful lines about family and love. You always love your parents, spouse, kids and friends but sometimes it is really hard to like them, especially when grief is eating you inside. But for as many moments that are hard in this book there are all those others that are funny and hopeful and I spent the entire time rooting for Tom, "last bastion of patriarchal poor taste, arrested development and mental retardation" and Georgie. I rooted for people who would be the villain of another story. Sam, poor freaking Sam, who made a terrible mistake once upon a time. I see Sam and Georgie as a less funny version of Ross and Rachael from friends, but we were on a break, and I ache for Georgie to forgive him.
The way the story was pieced together with moments of the past and present added to the overall emotion I felt for the people involved. I liked Tom but I really connected with Georgie and loved her relationship to Tom. I really don’t want to give too much of the story away because Marchetta is infinitely better at telling a story than I am and I don’t want to diminish how this can affect you if you go into it blind.
I will say that I was so happy to get glimpses of the friends from Saving Francesca again. To see where everyone was at five years later and how most of their lives were still intertwined. Reading about Will and Francesca down the road really gave me warm fuzzy feelings.
“Come here,” she says.
“No, you come here.”
“I said it first.”
“Rock paper scissors.”
“No. Because you’ll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you’ll win.”
Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first.”
Some of the banter between Tom, Justine and Francesca make me laugh out loud. True friends you can fall out of touch with for long periods of time sometimes and then just pick back up like almost no time has passed.
I got to the end of this and wanted more…so much more. Thank you to Danielle who told me that there will be another book about Jimmy that will eventually be done and set two years after this. I will forgive that there was no epilogue since the story of these people I’ve grown attached to will continue on otherwise I would have thrown a tantrum comparable only to Annabel Mackee.
http://www.amazon.com/Pipers-Son-Meli...
4.5 Super Stars
Melina Marchette is the only author I’ve found that can break and squish my heart more times than I can count in a book and make me love every minute of it and ask for more. The stories she tells about families that are strong and loving but have been broken by a tragedy and are trying to pick up the pieces again draw you in to the point you never want to leave. The only thing wrong with this book is that it ended.
“But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.”
When you lose someone in an unexpected and sudden way it can affect everyone who knew that person it ripples and radiates out like a pebble thrown on still water or more like a dozen pebbles each creating their own ripples that crisscross and distort as they touch one another. The Piper’s Son explores that from the perspective of two pebbles Tom and Georgie.
Georgie’s younger brother and Tom’s Uncle Joe died in a terrorist attack in London two years ago. Since then their lives have been turned upside down and inside out. This is the story of the point when everyone starts to put things back together.
“Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.”
I found so many great insightful lines about family and love. You always love your parents, spouse, kids and friends but sometimes it is really hard to like them, especially when grief is eating you inside. But for as many moments that are hard in this book there are all those others that are funny and hopeful and I spent the entire time rooting for Tom, "last bastion of patriarchal poor taste, arrested development and mental retardation" and Georgie. I rooted for people who would be the villain of another story. Sam, poor freaking Sam, who made a terrible mistake once upon a time. I see Sam and Georgie as a less funny version of Ross and Rachael from friends, but we were on a break, and I ache for Georgie to forgive him.
The way the story was pieced together with moments of the past and present added to the overall emotion I felt for the people involved. I liked Tom but I really connected with Georgie and loved her relationship to Tom. I really don’t want to give too much of the story away because Marchetta is infinitely better at telling a story than I am and I don’t want to diminish how this can affect you if you go into it blind.
I will say that I was so happy to get glimpses of the friends from Saving Francesca again. To see where everyone was at five years later and how most of their lives were still intertwined. Reading about Will and Francesca down the road really gave me warm fuzzy feelings.
“Come here,” she says.
“No, you come here.”
“I said it first.”
“Rock paper scissors.”
“No. Because you’ll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you’ll win.”
Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first.”
Some of the banter between Tom, Justine and Francesca make me laugh out loud. True friends you can fall out of touch with for long periods of time sometimes and then just pick back up like almost no time has passed.
I got to the end of this and wanted more…so much more. Thank you to Danielle who told me that there will be another book about Jimmy that will eventually be done and set two years after this. I will forgive that there was no epilogue since the story of these people I’ve grown attached to will continue on otherwise I would have thrown a tantrum comparable only to Annabel Mackee.
May 16, 2012
I am always struck with a feeling of hopelessness when I finish a Melina Marchetta novel because I know that there is nothing I can say and that there are no words that I can articulate perfectly enough to truly express what I feel about her books. I feel as if that feeling was amplified seven-fold while reading The Piper’s Son because I simply cannot express how beautiful, touching, and poignant it is. In some ways, writing a review for The Piper’s Son is one of the hardest things I’ve ever found myself doing. Not only because there are already dozens of beautiful and raving reviews of this book, but simply because of how profoundly this novel affected me.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I dropped out of uni and spent the last year smoking weed and getting high.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I had a one-and-a-halfnight stand with one of my best friends and I don’t have the guts to ask her how she felt about it.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I treated my friends who hung around to pick up the pieces like they were shit.”
Clap, clap, clap.
Thomas Mackee’s family is broken. His dearly loved uncle was blown apart by train bombings two years ago, his father is missing and a newly-converted alcoholic, and his parents marriage, which everyone believes is perfect, has fallen apart, resulting in his mother and sister living in an entirely different state. Tortured with abandonment and grief, Tom drops out of university, breaks the heart of the girl he loves, pushes aside his friends, and resorts to drugs. When Tom hits rock bottom, there’s only one place he can go – his Aunt Georgie. Georgie however, has enough on her own plate – she is pregnant with the child of a man who loves her, yet who had an affair seven years ago and has a son to prove it. Georgie’s brother is missing, her sister-in-law lives in another state, her youngest brother’s death still plagues her, and her family, which abandoned her when she most needed them, seems to be coming back, all because she got knocked up with a man she vowed never to take back or forgive. Five years ago, all Francesca needed was saving, but this time, it isn’t just Tom who needs to be saved – it’s his entire family.
The Piper’s Son is unlike any of the previous Melina Marchetta books I’ve read, perhaps because it speaks to an audience that is larger than simply young adults and because it deals with so much more than just grief. It deals with the tearing apart of a happy family, loss, pain, and torture so deep and acute that you cannot help but block out the world.
“How can I be happy?” she asks with anguish. “To get this baby, my brother had to die. Do you understand?”
“And to get this family, my best friend had to die,” he says gruffly. “So aren’t we both a sorry pair?”
I don’t know how Marchetta does it, but she writes grief and loss in such a tangible manner that you yourself feel it. You can’t help but wish that such tragedy had never befallen this family, one that you’ve never even met. You can’t help but root for Tom, even when he’s being a jerk, because really, we’ve all behaved like him at some point. You can’t help but hope beyond all hope that everything will be okay, that nothing worse is going to happen – that this family, which used to be so happy, can find happiness and move on once again. The Piper’s Son is a novel that makes you forget you’re a reader and makes you believe you’re a spectator, watching Tom’s life unfold before your eyes. It’s a novel that tugs at your heart, wrenches at your soul, and makes you appreciate everything you have in life that Tom doesn’t. It’s a novel that makes you think about when it’s right to move on and leads you to accept the happiness that can come later, even after the death of a beloved one. It’s a story like no other.
“It should have been none of us,” she says fiercely. “None of us. We didn’t deserve it. No one does.”
“Christ, Georgie, just say I lose Tom,” he says, beating a fist against his temple, as if he wants to hammer the thought out of his head. “Just say I lose my boy.”
The Piper’s Son is probably one of the most fitting titles I’ve ever heard. Dominic, Tom’s father, is known as “the piper” and more than anything else in this story – whether it is Tom’s friendships, his relationship with his aunt, his yearning for his dead uncle – this is novel about Tom’s relationship with his father. It may not seem like that at first, but the root cause of everything bad, miserable, and confusing in Tom’s life doesn’t go back to death or grief, it goes back to the loss of his father. For me, their story was the most heartbreaking because it affected Dominic on a deeper level than Tom could ever have known, because it affected Jacinta, Tom’s mother, in a way he never could have anticipated, and because in the end, it was the relationship that mattered the most to him. I think what I love the most about this story isn’t the relationships or the characters; it’s the fact that every single character is of utmost importance. We don’t ever get to read anything from Dominic’s point of view, or Jacinta’s point of view, or even Tara’s point of view, but we understand them and their grief, loss, and hope just as well as we understand Tom’s. That, in my opinion, is the true mark of a good writer.
The Piper’s Son is a novel that cannot be described in words; it can only be felt through words. I loved meeting “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” and knowing that they still managed to be together, despite having oceans between them. I loved the chemistry between Will and Frankie, the fierce protection between Frankie and Luca, and the utter bliss and happiness of having all these friends back together once again. I loved the new characters (especially Ned, Sam, and Callum, Sam’s adorable son) just as much as I loved the old ones and I dearly hope that Marchetta is writing a sequel to The Piper’s Son (because Jimmy Hailler deserves his own book and Justine and Ben seriously need to get together already). Despite its serious nature, The Piper’s Son still retains the humor of Marchetta’s writings and Tom’s original and undeniable wit. This is a story that will make you laugh, that will make you cry, that will make you dream, that will make you pray and one that will undoubtedly change your life (or your outlook on it at least) forever. So should you read The Piper’s Son? Yes. A thousand times, yes.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I dropped out of uni and spent the last year smoking weed and getting high.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I had a one-and-a-halfnight stand with one of my best friends and I don’t have the guts to ask her how she felt about it.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I treated my friends who hung around to pick up the pieces like they were shit.”
Clap, clap, clap.
Thomas Mackee’s family is broken. His dearly loved uncle was blown apart by train bombings two years ago, his father is missing and a newly-converted alcoholic, and his parents marriage, which everyone believes is perfect, has fallen apart, resulting in his mother and sister living in an entirely different state. Tortured with abandonment and grief, Tom drops out of university, breaks the heart of the girl he loves, pushes aside his friends, and resorts to drugs. When Tom hits rock bottom, there’s only one place he can go – his Aunt Georgie. Georgie however, has enough on her own plate – she is pregnant with the child of a man who loves her, yet who had an affair seven years ago and has a son to prove it. Georgie’s brother is missing, her sister-in-law lives in another state, her youngest brother’s death still plagues her, and her family, which abandoned her when she most needed them, seems to be coming back, all because she got knocked up with a man she vowed never to take back or forgive. Five years ago, all Francesca needed was saving, but this time, it isn’t just Tom who needs to be saved – it’s his entire family.
The Piper’s Son is unlike any of the previous Melina Marchetta books I’ve read, perhaps because it speaks to an audience that is larger than simply young adults and because it deals with so much more than just grief. It deals with the tearing apart of a happy family, loss, pain, and torture so deep and acute that you cannot help but block out the world.
“How can I be happy?” she asks with anguish. “To get this baby, my brother had to die. Do you understand?”
“And to get this family, my best friend had to die,” he says gruffly. “So aren’t we both a sorry pair?”
I don’t know how Marchetta does it, but she writes grief and loss in such a tangible manner that you yourself feel it. You can’t help but wish that such tragedy had never befallen this family, one that you’ve never even met. You can’t help but root for Tom, even when he’s being a jerk, because really, we’ve all behaved like him at some point. You can’t help but hope beyond all hope that everything will be okay, that nothing worse is going to happen – that this family, which used to be so happy, can find happiness and move on once again. The Piper’s Son is a novel that makes you forget you’re a reader and makes you believe you’re a spectator, watching Tom’s life unfold before your eyes. It’s a novel that tugs at your heart, wrenches at your soul, and makes you appreciate everything you have in life that Tom doesn’t. It’s a novel that makes you think about when it’s right to move on and leads you to accept the happiness that can come later, even after the death of a beloved one. It’s a story like no other.
“It should have been none of us,” she says fiercely. “None of us. We didn’t deserve it. No one does.”
“Christ, Georgie, just say I lose Tom,” he says, beating a fist against his temple, as if he wants to hammer the thought out of his head. “Just say I lose my boy.”
The Piper’s Son is probably one of the most fitting titles I’ve ever heard. Dominic, Tom’s father, is known as “the piper” and more than anything else in this story – whether it is Tom’s friendships, his relationship with his aunt, his yearning for his dead uncle – this is novel about Tom’s relationship with his father. It may not seem like that at first, but the root cause of everything bad, miserable, and confusing in Tom’s life doesn’t go back to death or grief, it goes back to the loss of his father. For me, their story was the most heartbreaking because it affected Dominic on a deeper level than Tom could ever have known, because it affected Jacinta, Tom’s mother, in a way he never could have anticipated, and because in the end, it was the relationship that mattered the most to him. I think what I love the most about this story isn’t the relationships or the characters; it’s the fact that every single character is of utmost importance. We don’t ever get to read anything from Dominic’s point of view, or Jacinta’s point of view, or even Tara’s point of view, but we understand them and their grief, loss, and hope just as well as we understand Tom’s. That, in my opinion, is the true mark of a good writer.
The Piper’s Son is a novel that cannot be described in words; it can only be felt through words. I loved meeting “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” and knowing that they still managed to be together, despite having oceans between them. I loved the chemistry between Will and Frankie, the fierce protection between Frankie and Luca, and the utter bliss and happiness of having all these friends back together once again. I loved the new characters (especially Ned, Sam, and Callum, Sam’s adorable son) just as much as I loved the old ones and I dearly hope that Marchetta is writing a sequel to The Piper’s Son (because Jimmy Hailler deserves his own book and Justine and Ben seriously need to get together already). Despite its serious nature, The Piper’s Son still retains the humor of Marchetta’s writings and Tom’s original and undeniable wit. This is a story that will make you laugh, that will make you cry, that will make you dream, that will make you pray and one that will undoubtedly change your life (or your outlook on it at least) forever. So should you read The Piper’s Son? Yes. A thousand times, yes.
August 8, 2014
2012 NOTE: I first read this March last year and just reread it because of Marchetta Madness. Funny that I finished rereading this one the same day I posted a review last year. :P Maybe I should make it a yearly tradition? Glad I now have the Aussie edition because it's even more beautiful in person. And yep, the book itself is just as amazing as I remembered (it still made me cry).
2011 review: Originally posted here.
Today's my birthday and I'm glad that I get to post a review of what has become one of my favorite reads this year. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta is a companion novel to Saving Francesca, which I enjoyed reading last year. I think both books stand well on their own so there's no need to read one before the other. I can't even remember the details in Saving Francesca while I was reading The Piper's Son (which I regret. I will reread both books consecutively in the future). I love Melina Marchetta and Jellicoe Road is actually one of the books that encouraged me to read more contemporary YA.
How about that Aussie cover? I think it's lovely and I wanted to get a copy of it. I feel like the US edition is marketed for a younger audience when The Piper's Son doesn't read like a YA novel. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to get it so I went ahead and ordered the US edition because I've been waiting to read this for a while now. Let me just say that it was totally worth the wait! There's something about Melina Marchetta's books and her writing that makes the characters come alive and it makes you want to squeeze yourself into each close-knit group and beg to be included. That's how I felt when I read Jellicoe Road and again when I finished The Piper's Son. I wanted to become a part of their world, I wanted to feel all that love and yes, even the heartbreak and the pain that go with it. I can't get over how amazing Melina Marchetta is as a writer because she can really make you feel. Her books can make you laugh and cry and care about her characters to the point that you become fully invested in them. You feel like you're experiencing everything that her characters are going through and even when they're mostly difficult situations, you'll still love every minute of it. The Piper's Son is an achingly beautiful book that manages to do just that.
Tom is such a broken person at the start of the book and you just hurt for him and his family. The point of view changes from Tom to his aunt Georgie and the reader gets a clearer picture of each family member and most of their friends because of this. The Piper's Son is about grief and the slow healing process that goes with it. The characters were fully fleshed out, even the secondary ones, and Melina Marchetta shows how a person's actions and feelings affect the people around him or her. It reminds me of ripples in water and how they spread out to bigger areas. In my opinion, this book perfectly describes how complicated different kinds of relationships are. Family, friendships and romantic relationships - all of these are highlighted and illustrated in this book. Even if there's a lot of love involved, people are bound to make mistakes that they'll regret and it's a matter of knowing when something is worth fighting for and when someone deserves to be forgiven. Music is also a huge aspect of this book because a lot of the characters are into it. I've never been a big music geek but this book made me want to make a playlist and look up all of the songs mentioned in it. If it isn't obvious yet, I loved this book to bits. It's all kinds of wonderful. If you haven't had a chance to pick this up, I urge you to READ IT. After finishing this book, I couldn't stop thinking about it and I had one of those "THIS is why I read!" moments.
Side note: Does anyone know if Ben the Violinist in this one is the same Ben from Jellicoe Road? If yes, then that's awesome.
2011 review: Originally posted here.
Today's my birthday and I'm glad that I get to post a review of what has become one of my favorite reads this year. The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta is a companion novel to Saving Francesca, which I enjoyed reading last year. I think both books stand well on their own so there's no need to read one before the other. I can't even remember the details in Saving Francesca while I was reading The Piper's Son (which I regret. I will reread both books consecutively in the future). I love Melina Marchetta and Jellicoe Road is actually one of the books that encouraged me to read more contemporary YA.
How about that Aussie cover? I think it's lovely and I wanted to get a copy of it. I feel like the US edition is marketed for a younger audience when The Piper's Son doesn't read like a YA novel. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to get it so I went ahead and ordered the US edition because I've been waiting to read this for a while now. Let me just say that it was totally worth the wait! There's something about Melina Marchetta's books and her writing that makes the characters come alive and it makes you want to squeeze yourself into each close-knit group and beg to be included. That's how I felt when I read Jellicoe Road and again when I finished The Piper's Son. I wanted to become a part of their world, I wanted to feel all that love and yes, even the heartbreak and the pain that go with it. I can't get over how amazing Melina Marchetta is as a writer because she can really make you feel. Her books can make you laugh and cry and care about her characters to the point that you become fully invested in them. You feel like you're experiencing everything that her characters are going through and even when they're mostly difficult situations, you'll still love every minute of it. The Piper's Son is an achingly beautiful book that manages to do just that.
Tom is such a broken person at the start of the book and you just hurt for him and his family. The point of view changes from Tom to his aunt Georgie and the reader gets a clearer picture of each family member and most of their friends because of this. The Piper's Son is about grief and the slow healing process that goes with it. The characters were fully fleshed out, even the secondary ones, and Melina Marchetta shows how a person's actions and feelings affect the people around him or her. It reminds me of ripples in water and how they spread out to bigger areas. In my opinion, this book perfectly describes how complicated different kinds of relationships are. Family, friendships and romantic relationships - all of these are highlighted and illustrated in this book. Even if there's a lot of love involved, people are bound to make mistakes that they'll regret and it's a matter of knowing when something is worth fighting for and when someone deserves to be forgiven. Music is also a huge aspect of this book because a lot of the characters are into it. I've never been a big music geek but this book made me want to make a playlist and look up all of the songs mentioned in it. If it isn't obvious yet, I loved this book to bits. It's all kinds of wonderful. If you haven't had a chance to pick this up, I urge you to READ IT. After finishing this book, I couldn't stop thinking about it and I had one of those "THIS is why I read!" moments.
Side note: Does anyone know if Ben the Violinist in this one is the same Ben from Jellicoe Road? If yes, then that's awesome.
October 18, 2010
"Maybe she'd always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them."
Marchetta is a writing god!!! I have spent the day re-reading parts of this book that I love. I didn’t want this story to end.
The Piper’s Son is set 5 years after Saving Francesca. It is from Thomas Mackee’s POV and also his Aunty Georgia‘s, POV. Thomas Mackee isn’t the loveable misfit we all remember, he is sad and pissed off at the world. He is grieving the loss of his Uncle Joe and dealing with his family and his world falling apart. Georgie is also dealing with her grief but also falling pregnant to her ex who cheated on her 7 years ago. This is the story of Thomas and Georgie putting their lives back together.
The writing is brilliant, it pulls you into Thomas & Georgie's world. It doesn’t feel like you are being told a story, it feels like you are there with the characters. I became emotionally invested in them and it was heart wrenching at times. But thank goodness Marchetta balance the pain with hope and threw in humour to match the heart ache.
The characters are amazing. Flawed, realistic and loveable. I admit after reading Saving Francesca I had a bit of a crush on Thomas Mackee and this book didn’t help with that. Even if he did make me mad which happened a lot. We get flashbacks of his relationship with Tara. And also get to watch him try and rebuild that relationship through emails and telephone calls. I loved the emails, I loved seeing Tom put his feelings out there! We are introduced to Georgie and I adored her story. She was dealing with guilt about the baby, at what costs did it come. And she never believed she deserved happiness. I could have read a whole book just about her. We get to see Francesca, Will and Justine again. Jimmy though was mentioned briefly but is absent (here’s hoping Marchetta writes a book about his life!).
Overall, another favourite from Marchetta. A book I will read over and over again!
Note: I don’t think I would call this book YA. Not that I don’t think mature teens wouldn’t enjoy it but I would classify this book as adult.
Marchetta is a writing god!!! I have spent the day re-reading parts of this book that I love. I didn’t want this story to end.
The Piper’s Son is set 5 years after Saving Francesca. It is from Thomas Mackee’s POV and also his Aunty Georgia‘s, POV. Thomas Mackee isn’t the loveable misfit we all remember, he is sad and pissed off at the world. He is grieving the loss of his Uncle Joe and dealing with his family and his world falling apart. Georgie is also dealing with her grief but also falling pregnant to her ex who cheated on her 7 years ago. This is the story of Thomas and Georgie putting their lives back together.
The writing is brilliant, it pulls you into Thomas & Georgie's world. It doesn’t feel like you are being told a story, it feels like you are there with the characters. I became emotionally invested in them and it was heart wrenching at times. But thank goodness Marchetta balance the pain with hope and threw in humour to match the heart ache.
The characters are amazing. Flawed, realistic and loveable. I admit after reading Saving Francesca I had a bit of a crush on Thomas Mackee and this book didn’t help with that. Even if he did make me mad which happened a lot. We get flashbacks of his relationship with Tara. And also get to watch him try and rebuild that relationship through emails and telephone calls. I loved the emails, I loved seeing Tom put his feelings out there! We are introduced to Georgie and I adored her story. She was dealing with guilt about the baby, at what costs did it come. And she never believed she deserved happiness. I could have read a whole book just about her. We get to see Francesca, Will and Justine again. Jimmy though was mentioned briefly but is absent (here’s hoping Marchetta writes a book about his life!).
Overall, another favourite from Marchetta. A book I will read over and over again!
Note: I don’t think I would call this book YA. Not that I don’t think mature teens wouldn’t enjoy it but I would classify this book as adult.
December 8, 2010
My review can also be found on my blog Collections.
I love Thomas. Out of all the boys in Saving Francesca, it was definitely Thomas who stood out to me. Really happy to know more about him and his situation, including the rest of his family's. Melina Marchetta is always so great with family and friend relationships.
I also loved the parts with Thomas and the other characters from Saving Francesca, especially Tara, the girls, and Will Trombal. Awesome friends and hilarious moments. The new characters were great as well. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the violinist (I kept expecting Me? to come up, but I guess that isn't his standard response anymore. haha), Heckle & Jeckle, and the Asian. I was fangirling every single time they were mentioned. Could not help myself. ;P
Like every time I finish a Melina Marchetta novel, I wish it didn't have to end. But I love that there's always hope in the end and that you just know it will all eventually work out for the characters. Seriously can't wait to read Marchetta's next book. Love them all!
(And I'm with everyone who says that we need Jimmy's story! PLEASE!!)
February 12, 2017
Sometimes I read sad books about lonely people and it makes me feel things. It’s so inexplicable and consuming. I’m afraid I’m going to drown with all these sentiments inside me.
That’s what I felt reading The Piper’s Son.
I don’t know how Melina Marchetta manages to do it, but she always impart something life jarring message to her readers.
Review to come.
That’s what I felt reading The Piper’s Son.
I don’t know how Melina Marchetta manages to do it, but she always impart something life jarring message to her readers.
Review to come.
May 12, 2020
"But this beat is fast and even though his joints are aching, his arm's out of control like it has a mind of its own and the sweat that drenches his hair and face seem to smother him, but nothing's going to stop Tom. He's aiming for oblivion.”
Initial Final Page Thoughts.
I feel so very stricken. How does MM do these things to my soul?
High Points.
Thomas Finch Mackee. Family. History. Honesty. Grief. Reality. Late night phone calls. Sydney International Airport. Attics. E-Mails. Impossible questions. Getting the right chord.
Low Point.
Two thoughts:
Ugh, yeah, I really don’t like Will.
and
WHERE WAS JIMMY?!
Hero.
I feel like I need to quote Tara Finke here before I start what will be known as the ‘Torrent of Love for Tom F. Mackee’.
Thomas Finch Mackee is not a likeable character. If you met him in the street, you’d probably want to punch him or shake him or slap him or just yell at him until your lungs are raw because he is so infuriating. He makes terrible decisions, he has no definite goals, he’s callous and he’s an awful, awful, awful friend/son/nephew/boyfriend (nearly wrote ‘lover’ then, but you know that would have been a lie ;-) )
But from page one of this book (I’m ignoring Saving Francesca here because I think I made my love for him clear in my review ), I fell in love with him all over again, in spite of all his flaws. Maybe even because of his flaws.
He’s confused, he’s angry, he’s sad and he’s desperate and if this was any other book or any other writer I would’ve been like “Urgh, just sort your life out preferably somewhere where I’m not” but every time Tom was hurting, my heart completely broke and my gut wrenched and all of those t’other metaphors.
Thus is the power of Ms Marchetta. Witchcraft, I say.
I think it would be easy for people to not like Tom, and even thoughI’d think you were completely loopy I would understand, it’s important to remember that this book finds Tom at rock bottom and it is his journey through his grief and learning to forgive and love that makes Tom, and this book, so perfect in my eyes.
Georgie.
Ohh, Georgie. I loved how she was just as flawed as the rest of them and made no apologies. Her entire world is falling apart around her and she’s a mess, but she still gets there in the end. I love how the relationship between the past, the present and the future of her family were depicted through Georgie.
And those e-mails?
Sob.
Also, some of the exchanges between Georgie and Tom were absolutely hilarious. Their dynamic was really excellent.
Love Interest.
Tara Finke. The girl who “makes his heart beat fast”. It’s difficult to talk about Finke because, bar a few pages, she isn’t actually in this book as a real person but more of a memory and a blatant reminder to Tom at how far he had fallen and screwed up everything that was important to him.
But the rambling e-mails and late-night phone calls were highly entertaining and extremely sweet.
Jimmy.
Yes, he gets his own heading because there was a blatant Jimmy-shaped hole missing in this book. Although… I did notice on page 127 that Francesca says “Jim doesn’t want to be found just yet.”
Hm. Just yet, eh?
I’m going to hold out for a book purely about Thomas Mackee and Jimmy Haillerand Jonah Griggs and the road trip they go on to reconnect and bond. Also on this road trip they would inexplicably find themselves in Manchester. *shifty look*
Theme Tune.
OK, I think I need to create a Thomas Finch Mackee playlist because I have approximately a million songs I want tolisten to with him while we’re sat in Georgie’s attic surrounded by all his crap link with him.
But I’ve narrowed it down to two.
Well… technically fourteen.
My theme album for him would be Urban Hymns by The Verve. Every song on this album is beautiful and raw and passionate and brutal and poetic and I like to think that Tom would appreciate the ridiculously amazing musical composition that goes into every single one of their songs. And also, I think the conflicts that were rife in between the band members have a certain kind of resonance with Tom’s character and his own destructive relationships.
If I had to pick one song from the album it would be this one.
Lucky Man- The Verve.
And, um… this one.
And the other song choice stems from my thoughts about Tom’s relationship with his dad which stood out to me as the one that was most the poignant.
Marchetta’s portrayal of the breakdown of Tom’s relationship with his dad, who had been placed on such a high pedestal, was so perfectly executed that every scene the two of them were in together made mesob like a girl feel very sad. There was such a bitter-sweet tinge to every conversation and every look and every memory they had together.
So this song is dedicated to Tom and the piper and I hope that one day they will return to how they used to and Tom will want to follow his hero once more.
JCB Song- Nizlopi.
Angst Level.
10/10. There isn’t much I can say about this that I haven’t already mentioned or that I don’t want to spoil. This book doesn’t hold any prisoners and it doesn’t offer any easy quick-fix answers or solutions to the issues that are brought up.
This book is a refreshing change from the typical YA book, especially because not only is Tom older than the usual YA hero (he’s twenty one) but we also have the perspective of Georgie, who is in her early forties.
Recommended For.
Everyone. People who haven’t read Saving Francesca (or, people who have read SF, I just mean you don’t need to have read it because even though there are overlaps… this is Tom’s book). People who have a thing for bad boys. People who think it’s a crime to rhyme. People who come and go and talk of Michaelangelo. People who can read about Norton Anthologies without having heart palpitations (the horror… the horroooor). People who wish that there was a key on your computer to stop an e-mail being sent once you pressed ‘Send’. People who instantly think of watching Neighbours when they’re supposed to be writing essays when they read the word ‘pash’. People who wish more people would read this book so they didn’t think they were a mental when they announce that “It’s time to STD’.
Initial Final Page Thoughts.
I feel so very stricken. How does MM do these things to my soul?
High Points.
Thomas Finch Mackee. Family. History. Honesty. Grief. Reality. Late night phone calls. Sydney International Airport. Attics. E-Mails. Impossible questions. Getting the right chord.
Low Point.
Two thoughts:
Ugh, yeah, I really don’t like Will.
and
WHERE WAS JIMMY?!
Hero.
I feel like I need to quote Tara Finke here before I start what will be known as the ‘Torrent of Love for Tom F. Mackee’.
“Thomas Mackee is the last bastion of arrested development and hormonal retardation.” (SF)
Thomas Finch Mackee is not a likeable character. If you met him in the street, you’d probably want to punch him or shake him or slap him or just yell at him until your lungs are raw because he is so infuriating. He makes terrible decisions, he has no definite goals, he’s callous and he’s an awful, awful, awful friend/son/nephew/boyfriend (nearly wrote ‘lover’ then, but you know that would have been a lie ;-) )
But from page one of this book (I’m ignoring Saving Francesca here because I think I made my love for him clear in my review ), I fell in love with him all over again, in spite of all his flaws. Maybe even because of his flaws.
He’s confused, he’s angry, he’s sad and he’s desperate and if this was any other book or any other writer I would’ve been like “Urgh, just sort your life out preferably somewhere where I’m not” but every time Tom was hurting, my heart completely broke and my gut wrenched and all of those t’other metaphors.
Thus is the power of Ms Marchetta. Witchcraft, I say.
I think it would be easy for people to not like Tom, and even though
Georgie.
Ohh, Georgie. I loved how she was just as flawed as the rest of them and made no apologies. Her entire world is falling apart around her and she’s a mess, but she still gets there in the end. I love how the relationship between the past, the present and the future of her family were depicted through Georgie.
And those e-mails?
Sob.
Also, some of the exchanges between Georgie and Tom were absolutely hilarious. Their dynamic was really excellent.
Love Interest.
Tara Finke. The girl who “makes his heart beat fast”. It’s difficult to talk about Finke because, bar a few pages, she isn’t actually in this book as a real person but more of a memory and a blatant reminder to Tom at how far he had fallen and screwed up everything that was important to him.
But the rambling e-mails and late-night phone calls were highly entertaining and extremely sweet.
Jimmy.
Yes, he gets his own heading because there was a blatant Jimmy-shaped hole missing in this book. Although… I did notice on page 127 that Francesca says “Jim doesn’t want to be found just yet.”
Hm. Just yet, eh?
I’m going to hold out for a book purely about Thomas Mackee and Jimmy Hailler
Theme Tune.
OK, I think I need to create a Thomas Finch Mackee playlist because I have approximately a million songs I want to
But I’ve narrowed it down to two.
Well… technically fourteen.
My theme album for him would be Urban Hymns by The Verve. Every song on this album is beautiful and raw and passionate and brutal and poetic and I like to think that Tom would appreciate the ridiculously amazing musical composition that goes into every single one of their songs. And also, I think the conflicts that were rife in between the band members have a certain kind of resonance with Tom’s character and his own destructive relationships.
If I had to pick one song from the album it would be this one.
Lucky Man- The Verve.
And, um… this one.
And the other song choice stems from my thoughts about Tom’s relationship with his dad which stood out to me as the one that was most the poignant.
Marchetta’s portrayal of the breakdown of Tom’s relationship with his dad, who had been placed on such a high pedestal, was so perfectly executed that every scene the two of them were in together made me
So this song is dedicated to Tom and the piper and I hope that one day they will return to how they used to and Tom will want to follow his hero once more.
JCB Song- Nizlopi.
Angst Level.
10/10. There isn’t much I can say about this that I haven’t already mentioned or that I don’t want to spoil. This book doesn’t hold any prisoners and it doesn’t offer any easy quick-fix answers or solutions to the issues that are brought up.
This book is a refreshing change from the typical YA book, especially because not only is Tom older than the usual YA hero (he’s twenty one) but we also have the perspective of Georgie, who is in her early forties.
Recommended For.
Everyone. People who haven’t read Saving Francesca (or, people who have read SF, I just mean you don’t need to have read it because even though there are overlaps… this is Tom’s book). People who have a thing for bad boys. People who think it’s a crime to rhyme. People who come and go and talk of Michaelangelo. People who can read about Norton Anthologies without having heart palpitations (the horror… the horroooor). People who wish that there was a key on your computer to stop an e-mail being sent once you pressed ‘Send’. People who instantly think of watching Neighbours when they’re supposed to be writing essays when they read the word ‘pash’. People who wish more people would read this book so they didn’t think they were a mental when they announce that “It’s time to STD’.
January 23, 2019
Confession – writing this was terrifying. I love this book in an intense unexplainable way that makes me nervous. It makes me selfish, clutching my thoughts to my chest, unwilling to share them because they are mine and you can’t have them. This book is my secret and it’s time I came clean.
There is a reason why Marchetta is my favourite author and it extends beyond her skills as a writer. It is her ability to read people; to strip back the layers and lay them bare. She doesn’t box them into tropes or smother them in stereotypes, she writes people as they are; real. So that is what they become. Her ability to write every facet of the human condition breathes so much life into her characters that they cease to be words on a page. Nothing is idealised, every emotion is raw and unflinchingly real.
Tom’s relationship with his father was this all-encompassing thing that transcended beyond the words on the page. That confusing heart breaking realisation that this person you admire is just that; a person. They will hurt you in ways you never thought possible and it will cut deep, until the you recognise that even the adults amongst us make mistakes. Their relationship is painful and beautiful all at once, because it’s gone from being this wonderful thing full of trust and communication to complete silence. And it’s the breakdown of their relationship, how it hit rock bottom then carried on going for good measure that permeates Tom in ways he doesn't really understand. Those Finch-Mackees will get you good.
And not forgetting his life outside of his family, which is as much of an emotional driving force for the story as the inner workings of the Finch-Mackee clan. And that comes in the form of his relationship with his school friends aka the four horsewomen, Francesca, Justine, Siobhan and Tara, and not forgetting one Will Trombal. (IT IS GOOD TO BE BACK GUYS, OH HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU). He needs them to talk him down and welcome him back into the fold, because these are not fleeting friendships, these are friendships built on solid foundations that won’t ever fail. They are nuanced and vivid and it’s like stumbling across a secret that you knew but forgot. Their interactions are alive and will slay you with their humor. They are in a word, mesmorising. I could quite happily sit in the corner of the Union and just watch them and never get bored.
Georgie, she snuck up on me and held fast and tight. Her character was woven through with grief and guilt so cloying that it sometimes hurt my heart to read. She’s the lighthouse in the storm guiding you home but she too is broken and unwilling to forgive, even if forgiving means finding the way back to her. She overwhelmed me this woman, because she shows that even adults sometimes don’t get it right and sometimes all you can do is try to hold things together the best that you can.
The essence of this story is love – the love between family that more often than not gets taken for granted. The love between friends that stays strong regardless of the passing of time or distance. And it’s about the pain that love can inflict upon a person; grief, disappointment, misunderstandings. All the different ways you can inadvertently hurt those who mean the most. There is nothing harder than watching grief tear a family to shreds and having to look at the mess that was once something amazing. And Marchetta gets that and she doesn’t try to romanticise the spite and the hate that comes with loss, she never ones tries to make it anything less than what it is; it’s ugly and brutal and it can diminish a person.
There are some moments in life that make you stop and marvel – they’re few and far between and if you’re not paying enough attention, they might just pass you by. This book is a marvel and even if I could recite it off by heart, I would never, not ever, be able to do this book justice. This is my secret. And now it is yours.
(p.s Jimmy, I love you. Let's have tea and talk fantasy fiction. I know you're not a pothead.)
There is a reason why Marchetta is my favourite author and it extends beyond her skills as a writer. It is her ability to read people; to strip back the layers and lay them bare. She doesn’t box them into tropes or smother them in stereotypes, she writes people as they are; real. So that is what they become. Her ability to write every facet of the human condition breathes so much life into her characters that they cease to be words on a page. Nothing is idealised, every emotion is raw and unflinchingly real.
Tom’s relationship with his father was this all-encompassing thing that transcended beyond the words on the page. That confusing heart breaking realisation that this person you admire is just that; a person. They will hurt you in ways you never thought possible and it will cut deep, until the you recognise that even the adults amongst us make mistakes. Their relationship is painful and beautiful all at once, because it’s gone from being this wonderful thing full of trust and communication to complete silence. And it’s the breakdown of their relationship, how it hit rock bottom then carried on going for good measure that permeates Tom in ways he doesn't really understand. Those Finch-Mackees will get you good.
And not forgetting his life outside of his family, which is as much of an emotional driving force for the story as the inner workings of the Finch-Mackee clan. And that comes in the form of his relationship with his school friends aka the four horsewomen, Francesca, Justine, Siobhan and Tara, and not forgetting one Will Trombal. (IT IS GOOD TO BE BACK GUYS, OH HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU). He needs them to talk him down and welcome him back into the fold, because these are not fleeting friendships, these are friendships built on solid foundations that won’t ever fail. They are nuanced and vivid and it’s like stumbling across a secret that you knew but forgot. Their interactions are alive and will slay you with their humor. They are in a word, mesmorising. I could quite happily sit in the corner of the Union and just watch them and never get bored.
Georgie, she snuck up on me and held fast and tight. Her character was woven through with grief and guilt so cloying that it sometimes hurt my heart to read. She’s the lighthouse in the storm guiding you home but she too is broken and unwilling to forgive, even if forgiving means finding the way back to her. She overwhelmed me this woman, because she shows that even adults sometimes don’t get it right and sometimes all you can do is try to hold things together the best that you can.
The essence of this story is love – the love between family that more often than not gets taken for granted. The love between friends that stays strong regardless of the passing of time or distance. And it’s about the pain that love can inflict upon a person; grief, disappointment, misunderstandings. All the different ways you can inadvertently hurt those who mean the most. There is nothing harder than watching grief tear a family to shreds and having to look at the mess that was once something amazing. And Marchetta gets that and she doesn’t try to romanticise the spite and the hate that comes with loss, she never ones tries to make it anything less than what it is; it’s ugly and brutal and it can diminish a person.
There are some moments in life that make you stop and marvel – they’re few and far between and if you’re not paying enough attention, they might just pass you by. This book is a marvel and even if I could recite it off by heart, I would never, not ever, be able to do this book justice. This is my secret. And now it is yours.
(p.s Jimmy, I love you. Let's have tea and talk fantasy fiction. I know you're not a pothead.)
November 27, 2010
Maybe she’d always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spend the rest of your life searching for them. - TM
I don’t know how she does it, but Marchetta delivers it every time - a fictional story that seems so real, a cast of characters you’re not ready to let go of, and a powerful dialog that reaches into your heart and soul and reveals lessons and observations that have you contemplating love, life, loss and redemption. Absolute and shear perfection that I will never get enough of.
The Piper’s Son is a heart-wrenching story told in alternating POVs of both Thomas Mackee and Georgie Finch. It takes place two years after the death of Thomas’ Uncle Joe and the day he walked away from his friends from St. Sebastians and his family that was on the verge of imploding. Georgie has a set of issues of her own as her pregnancy progresses and she struggles to make sense of her life and the man that cheated on her seven years prior. This story takes you on their journey, one of healing, forgiveness and finding one’s way home again.
As with Marchetta’s other books, I love the cast of characters she creates and every single one is a gem in their own right. They are full of surprises and ready to take you on their exploration of life. I loved the twist with Mohsin the Ignorer. It made me realize that the worst thing you can do is not give someone a chance or simply the benefit of the doubt. Wow, when his bit was revealed, I was this close *gestures thumb and index finger one inch apart* to starting the story from the beginning to get a different perspective.
Frankie, Tara, Justine and Will were fun to revisit, but I wish.wish.wish Jimmy would have made an appearance. But no worries, this book delivered a healthy dose of surprises, sigh-worthy moments, and misty eyes that I hope others will enjoy as much as I did.
Melina Marchetta, the words you to commit to page are magical and the journeys you deliver are heart rending. You are a literary genius!!
Final note: A big HUG and thank you my kiwi friend Albie for sending me this beauteous book all the way from New Zealand. You are the bestest and I ♥ you for sharing this wonderful book with me!! It is South Carolina bound to the next SC Booker because it deserves to be shared and cherished. Alexa, you're up! :)
Favorite quotes
Don’t let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean, take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return… because I think I’ll need you to do that.- TM
Death by humiliation... - TM
Play me something that makes me feel,
This soul inside is made of steel.
Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating,
And babe I need you to make things real.
Walk inside me without silence,
Kill the past and change the tense.
Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring,
Take me places that make more sense.
-Thomas Mackee
I don’t know how she does it, but Marchetta delivers it every time - a fictional story that seems so real, a cast of characters you’re not ready to let go of, and a powerful dialog that reaches into your heart and soul and reveals lessons and observations that have you contemplating love, life, loss and redemption. Absolute and shear perfection that I will never get enough of.
The Piper’s Son is a heart-wrenching story told in alternating POVs of both Thomas Mackee and Georgie Finch. It takes place two years after the death of Thomas’ Uncle Joe and the day he walked away from his friends from St. Sebastians and his family that was on the verge of imploding. Georgie has a set of issues of her own as her pregnancy progresses and she struggles to make sense of her life and the man that cheated on her seven years prior. This story takes you on their journey, one of healing, forgiveness and finding one’s way home again.
As with Marchetta’s other books, I love the cast of characters she creates and every single one is a gem in their own right. They are full of surprises and ready to take you on their exploration of life. I loved the twist with Mohsin the Ignorer. It made me realize that the worst thing you can do is not give someone a chance or simply the benefit of the doubt. Wow, when his bit was revealed, I was this close *gestures thumb and index finger one inch apart* to starting the story from the beginning to get a different perspective.
Frankie, Tara, Justine and Will were fun to revisit, but I wish.wish.wish Jimmy would have made an appearance. But no worries, this book delivered a healthy dose of surprises, sigh-worthy moments, and misty eyes that I hope others will enjoy as much as I did.
Melina Marchetta, the words you to commit to page are magical and the journeys you deliver are heart rending. You are a literary genius!!
Final note: A big HUG and thank you my kiwi friend Albie for sending me this beauteous book all the way from New Zealand. You are the bestest and I ♥ you for sharing this wonderful book with me!! It is South Carolina bound to the next SC Booker because it deserves to be shared and cherished. Alexa, you're up! :)
Favorite quotes
Don’t let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean, take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return… because I think I’ll need you to do that.- TM
Death by humiliation... - TM
Play me something that makes me feel,
This soul inside is made of steel.
Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating,
And babe I need you to make things real.
Walk inside me without silence,
Kill the past and change the tense.
Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring,
Take me places that make more sense.
-Thomas Mackee
July 7, 2013
4.5 STARS
I came in this book, expecting a guffaws-a-minute marathon with Thomas Mackee, the "last bastion of patriarchal poor taste, arrested development and mental retardation". So it took me a couple of chapters to get into the groove of things seeing as this is actually a story about Tom AND his aunt Georgie, 5 years after Saving Francesca, living in the years after the death of a beloved family member. That and every possible issue you can cram in a New Adult-Adult book: family, friendship, love, honor, sex, religion, loss, grief, betrayal, forgiveness… racial stereotypes? I'm thinking back on that scene where Tom finally confronts Mohsin and I'll also have to put a check on that one.
Having read a fair amount of the New Adult books out there that claims to be realistic has somewhat skewed my expectations on what realistic is. The first half of this book, I couldn't understand the ripples created by the death of Joe, Tom's uncle, and the recovery of the body of one Tom Finch, Tom's biological grandfather. From Vietnam. I couldn't relate to the bonds these 2 characters have forged to the players in this story.
Because standard "realistic" New Adult fare means it's the mom or the dad and a car crash or cancer or infidelity or alcohol or abuse… and hey, sometimes, when you're really lucky, all of the above, that fuels the drama in the story. Then the a**hole hero falls for his best friend, no the other bestfriend who has a boyfriend overseas. And who cares about the other adults in the family? They're old, they have nothing interesting to offer the story. Then tension, tension, sex… then cliffhanger.
Get ready to be reprogrammed.
Because these two seemingly unrelated events are like separate storms, and you're standing there with Tom and Georgie, weathering through their effects on mothers, fathers, cheating boyfriends, almost girlfriends and the people they survive the day to day with in the aftermath of regrets, foraging through the pain of loss and embracing the unassuming comfort offered by the unlikeliest of friends.
It sounds heavy, I know and it is. Marchetta does what she does best: telling you a heartbreaking story,make you comfortable with amusing banter, then kick your heart broken to pieces again so she can patch them up good to break. Again.
And again.
But there's an art to how Marchetta delivers those gutting moments. The gentlest comforting laughter and humor so that when she's starting that littlest pinch in your heart, you don't notice until you're already bleeding some.
I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this to everyone. I have a bit of a pause weighing if this should be a 4 or a 5, but decisive enough to shelve it a favorite. But I have a feeling opinion will be divided on this one among my friends. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, lots of flashbacks that feels disjointed. One could even fashion a game out of it where you could cut up the flashbacks and arrange them in proper, linear chronology. It's not an easy read where you can't predict anything. Georgie is a 42-year old woman who got knocked up for the first time. Tom is a uni dropout, working as a dishwasher while his family's in tatters and . I don't know anyone in real life in these predicaments but the small effort to understand their stories makes me feel like I already do.
Is it worth it then? The confusion at length? The gutting moments? The characters you can't seem to understand or care for at first? If only to read someone like Tom Mackee say this to someone like.
Then yes. A thousand times, yes.
This one's for you, Tom.
I came in this book, expecting a guffaws-a-minute marathon with Thomas Mackee, the "last bastion of patriarchal poor taste, arrested development and mental retardation". So it took me a couple of chapters to get into the groove of things seeing as this is actually a story about Tom AND his aunt Georgie, 5 years after Saving Francesca, living in the years after the death of a beloved family member. That and every possible issue you can cram in a New Adult-Adult book: family, friendship, love, honor, sex, religion, loss, grief, betrayal, forgiveness… racial stereotypes? I'm thinking back on that scene where Tom finally confronts Mohsin and I'll also have to put a check on that one.
Having read a fair amount of the New Adult books out there that claims to be realistic has somewhat skewed my expectations on what realistic is. The first half of this book, I couldn't understand the ripples created by the death of Joe, Tom's uncle, and the recovery of the body of one Tom Finch, Tom's biological grandfather. From Vietnam. I couldn't relate to the bonds these 2 characters have forged to the players in this story.
Because standard "realistic" New Adult fare means it's the mom or the dad and a car crash or cancer or infidelity or alcohol or abuse… and hey, sometimes, when you're really lucky, all of the above, that fuels the drama in the story. Then the a**hole hero falls for his best friend, no the other bestfriend who has a boyfriend overseas. And who cares about the other adults in the family? They're old, they have nothing interesting to offer the story. Then tension, tension, sex… then cliffhanger.
Get ready to be reprogrammed.
Because these two seemingly unrelated events are like separate storms, and you're standing there with Tom and Georgie, weathering through their effects on mothers, fathers, cheating boyfriends, almost girlfriends and the people they survive the day to day with in the aftermath of regrets, foraging through the pain of loss and embracing the unassuming comfort offered by the unlikeliest of friends.
It sounds heavy, I know and it is. Marchetta does what she does best: telling you a heartbreaking story,make you comfortable with amusing banter, then kick your heart broken to pieces again so she can patch them up good to break. Again.
And then she's crying. Just crying and crying like everyone in his life does these days. He walks around her desk and hugs her. Vows there'll never be a reason for him to treat her the way he has. Because he doesn't want her crying like this ever again.
And again.
"Am I worth the hard w--?"
"Yes," he says before she finishes. "Yes."
But there's an art to how Marchetta delivers those gutting moments. The gentlest comforting laughter and humor so that when she's starting that littlest pinch in your heart, you don't notice until you're already bleeding some.
"Frankie will choose the two shittiest songs each time, just to piss us off," Tom mutters.
There's a sound of disgust from the front seat. "What a thing to say, Tom. Since when have I been that petty, huh?" She turns to Justine. "Can you believe he said that? Can you?
"Say you're sorry, Tom," Justine says.
He says he's sorry and Francesca plays Avril Lavigne's "Sk8r Boi".
I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this to everyone. I have a bit of a pause weighing if this should be a 4 or a 5, but decisive enough to shelve it a favorite. But I have a feeling opinion will be divided on this one among my friends. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, lots of flashbacks that feels disjointed. One could even fashion a game out of it where you could cut up the flashbacks and arrange them in proper, linear chronology. It's not an easy read where you can't predict anything. Georgie is a 42-year old woman who got knocked up for the first time. Tom is a uni dropout, working as a dishwasher while his family's in tatters and . I don't know anyone in real life in these predicaments but the small effort to understand their stories makes me feel like I already do.
Is it worth it then? The confusion at length? The gutting moments? The characters you can't seem to understand or care for at first? If only to read someone like Tom Mackee say this to someone like.
"Don't let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean. take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return… because I think I'll need you to do that."
Then yes. A thousand times, yes.
This one's for you, Tom.
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