Rating: WARTY!
I think it's time to take a vow never to read another novel which has a character's name in the title, and never to read another novel with the word 'saving' in the title! This means that Saving Francesca is a double no, or a no-no for short!
Initially, I thought that all the women in Francesca's family carried the 'a' suffix to pigeon-hole them as female: her mom is Mia, her kid sister Luca. Only the male has a rugged name: Bob. I was right about that last one, but wrong about Luca. It turned out hat she was a he! The thing is though, that the alpha (there's that 'a' again) male in the family is Mia. She's evidently maintained this position until she has a break-down at the start of this story, which sets the family adrift for reason which aren't well explained.
There was nothing in this story, no in the portion that I managed to stomach, to place it time-wise. It seemed like it was from last century as judged by the attitudes and schooling system, but other than that it could have been set today. Francesca attended St. Stella's, but that school has no year eleven or twelve, so she had to transfer to St Sebastian's, and thus we have the trope of a new kid in school. The trope of her being alone is enhanced by the fact that this is a boys school which has just opened itself up to co-ed. The level of misogyny here is truly startling, and the fact that no one seems to find it appalling is what made me think that the story is historical. I'd hate to think that Australian education system is this anachronistic; then again, maybe it's a sly comment on the Catholic church, which has been misogynistic since its inception, what with Eve being the downfall of mankind, you know.
All Francesca's friends now attend a school to which Mia refused to send Francesca under the belief that the other school would limit her options. As is typical with this kind of blinkered story, not only have her friends gone to a different school, they've also apparently gone to a different planet, or been expunged from history because there seems to be no way she can maintain contact with them - neither by text nor by phone call, neither by email nor by taking a walk over to their house. This is truly a blind and pathetic way to start a story. It's not remotely realistic.
But then this novel was one of caricatures. The boys are all stereotypical obnoxious boys no matter who they are or what their age. Francesca's friends are caricatures, too; one of them, Tina, is a 'feminist' so we're told, but she sounds far more like a radical communist than ever she does a feminist, and completely anachronistic to boot. Francesca herself is so emotional that she comes across more as a twelve-year-old than ever she does as someone in the latter half of her teens. She has a male love interest who she naturally detests at first sight, which confirms with a crystal clarity that she will be in love with him in short order an that this novel would be hide-bound by cliché and trope. Barf. Trite? They name is Melina Marchetta (there are those suffixes again!).
I couldn't continue reading this and I can't recommend it based on what I did read. This novel merely conformed my growing conviction that traditional publishers (like book award committees) pin the names of novel submissions (or nominations) to a large wall, blindfold themselves, and randomly toss darts at the wall. The novel titles which managed to garner for themselves a dart which sticks are the ones which are published (or awarded a medal) and the rest are recycled as material with which to stuff dartboards.
