The Piper's Son
Author: Melina Marchetta
Published: 3/1/10 (Aus) 3/8/11 (US)
Publisher: Penguins Australia (Aus), Candlewick Press (US)

Blurb (GR): 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.

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.

Review:
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.

Raw Blue
Author: Kirsty Eagar
Publication Date: 6/29/09 (no US date yet)
Publisher: Penguin Books Australia


Blurb (GR):Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly café. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing ... and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago. Then she meets Ryan and Carly has to decide ... Will she let the past bury her? Or can she let go of her anger and shame, and find the courage to be happy?


Review:
Somehow  Kirsty Eagar manages to capture the feeling in your gut you get when you are so struck with nature that you stumble over yourself trying to describe it to someone else but even if you can never describe it, you’re happy to have ever seen it. I’ve got a couple of these places in my back pocket* but Carly Lee sees one every single day when she goes down to the beach. I know next to nothing about surfing (I’m pretty sure watching Blue Crush probably deducts knowledge rather than adding any) but I am still fascinated by the lifestyle and I get the feeling that the only people that will ever truly understand the surfing lifestyle are those living it…which I suppose is true about almost any lifestyle.  I don’t really have a desire to go surfing but I still loved the feeling Carly got when she assessed the surf conditions, talked about the reflection off of and colors of the water, and rode a wave.  She loves it and I could feel it.

We all know that Melina Marchetta is the queen of the rounded-out character. (I hear from my Goodreads friend Nomes that MM mentioned this was one of her favorite reads of 2009) I was happy with most of the characters in Raw Blue, from Carly’s salsa dance-crazy Dutch woman in a midlife crisis to her surf buddy Danny who has synesthesia.  And of course, Carly and Ryan. Carly starts this book in a state of desperate loneliness—one where an act of kindness is sometimes unbearable and where, as she puts it, her basic needs are met but there is nothing to work towards or, I hesitate to say, live for…except surfing. Something awful happened to Carly on her school break in uni and after that, she wasn’t herself anymore. She dropped out and has been living on the northern shore, working as a cook and surfing every day,  but she is almost completely isolated.  She develops several relationships in the book but the primary one is with Ryan, another surfer she meets at her usual spot.  This book doesn’t tiptoe around sex, the realistic development of relationships, or the effect sexual abuse can have on the victim and I was happy to see that. Carly is 19 and Ryan is 26—their relationship feels more adult and this book definitely fills that awkward void of literature that exists between YA and adult.  And Ryan? Swoon.

I think something I truly enjoyed about this one was that it honestly felt Australian. The language, the personalities, the descriptions, just everything. I want this book published in the US but I want NONE of it changed or adapted.  I had to look up with bitumen is and so can you.   To change anything would rip the Aussie heart out of this book.

A statement of the obvious, I know, but every reader is different.  We all creep around on Goodreads trying to find our book twin—someone with 100% compatibility, someone who likes everything that you like and hates all the same things. (seriously, twin, if you are reading this—I’m looking for you!) Recommending books to people is hard. Anyway, my point is this: This book made me feel like I was reading a Melina Marchetta book. Sometimes the descriptions were painfully beautiful, the characters were delightfully flawed, and the dialogue was almost always spot-on.  If you are still reading this, you probably already know we have similar tastes so I recommend this to YOU.  I’ll take the blame if you hate it but I really don’t think you will. I hope you can get your hands on a copy!

I am beyond grateful that the lovely Nic (at Irresistible Reads) shared this book and I will definitely be acquiring a copy soon. Hopefully Penguin USA will get with the program and publish this here.  (If you click on the cover photo, as always, it will take you to a place you can purchase a copy)

5/5 stars