The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

The Piper's Son
Melina Marchetta
(Sequel to Saving Francesca)
YA Contemporary
Paperback, 336 pages
(Original publishing date: 1 March 2010)
14th August 2012
Candlewick Press

Goodreads Ratings: 4.04/5
My Rating: ALL THE STARS IN THE UNIVERSE

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. 

Sigh. Now where do I start? How exactly should i convey my words and feelings for this book? 

Let me give this a try, however pathetic it may sound. 

This book deserves the entire capacity of love i have within me to give. There, I've said it. I LOVE this book. If I could marry any book, it would be this one. 

The first three or so chapters are a ball of confusion. I dont get the timeline. I don't get who's who. But then I remember Jellicoe Road. How nothing makes sense at first and when the story starts unrolling, oh its the most beautiful thing ever. And it happened exactly that way with The Piper's Son. 

I love how this book can make my tears welled up, bordering to flowing out of my eyes and the next split second, I grinned hysterically like a maniac, ALL IN ONE PAGE. I love how I had to stop reading and closed the book to take a deep breath because either it gets too intense my poor heart couldn't take it, or my emotions was overflowing with joy that my heart felt like bursting at any second. I love it even more when I realized i took deep breaths for more times than i can count. I love how The Piper's Son is filled with angst and heartbreaks bcs i live and breathe angst and marchetta is an expert when it comes to breaking my heart. I love how when all these things happened to me, it made me think, "This. This is it. This is why i love reading so damn much."

I love Tom Mackee. I love Tara Finke. I love Georgie Finch. I love every name that comes up in this book (well except for that assholes ex-flatmates whose name isnt worth remembering). I love how Marchetta brings up family issues in this and how she brings Georgie forward. I especially love how Marchetta equates both adults and young adults in one book, giving everyone important roles to play in every relationship. How one depends on another. How one takes care of another. How big the impact they have over the other. How important one is to the other no matter how old they are. No matter who's the bigger one here, because they all matter. 

With Melina Marchetta, families are the most important element in her books and TPS without doubt delivers that excellently. I love that Marchetta gives me insight of how beautiful the Finch Mackee troop is, before everything fell down. I love how she makes sure we know what exactly the family has lost before ruining it to make the book happens. She writes this part so beautifully that I ached everytime i see the family members broke down to pains and losts.

"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."

I reread Saving Francesca right before i start The Piper's Son so everything is still fresh in my mind. I love all the snippets of the flashbacks i get from the Sebastian gang. TPS takes over 5 years after SF happened where they were in Year Eleven at the time. You see, most authors when they do flashbacks from the previous book, they basically remind the readers of the scene that already happened in book 1 and practically copy and paste the memories into book 2. But with Marchetta, all the flashbacks range from Year 12 (after SF) to the year before TPS happens, giving the readers ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SCENES from what we have read in SF and simultaneously gives us what we lost during the 5 years we weren't with the gang. And oh, those scenes are pure solid gold i tell you. 

I love the emails AND THAT ANABELSBROTHER TOMSISTER THING IS BRILLIANT!!!! 

One thing though, I jumped into TPS with hopes of seeing Jimmy Hailler but I DIDNT SEE HIM AT ALL. YOU OWE ME MARCHETTA. You owe me a full-length book of Hailler to make up for his absence in TPS and i will bring this dissatisfaction to my grave. 

By now, i must have abused the word love seeing as how much i said it in this review. 

May the Finch Mackees and the Spinellis be blessed with eternal happiness because they deserve it. 

“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.”