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The Piper's Son - Melina Marchetta This is one of those books I could feel at home if I were plucked out of my own life and set down inside it. I would freak out in other cozy everything is perfect families [If I Stay] but with the Mackees I would belong. My own family really isn't all that nice. I don't understand the cosy families of films like While You were Sleeping.
It was the small things like the sigh Georgie got from their mom that the boys didn't. I'm a twin myself so I get the Georgie and Dom relationship. I hope non twins got it while reading this book. It's very special but sometimes you do ask them to the hard sh-- you wouldn't ask of anyone else.

I haven't read Saving Francesca yet but from what my sister says it might be uncomfortably too close to home. I might really be a Spinelli and not a Mackee afterall.
I did feel more like Tom while reading his pov instead of the sisterhood though so much of me could relate to Francesca or Josephine. Marchetta did a great job taking me out of me and into Tom [i]and[/i] Georgie. I often feel disjointed when character povs switch up but not in this book.
I felt their loss of their beloved Joe.
--I have read it now and loved it. I still related more to the Mackees family dynamic but it hit close to home all the same.

This book is just as much Georgie's story as it is Tom's. Both characters made huge errors with pushing the people closest to them away after the death of their beloved brother [Georgie] and Uncle [Tom]. Tom's dad also did the same thing but to his son Tom and his wife.
I think the most heartbreaking part of this book is during the AA meeting Tom attends with his dad and [step]grand-dad, Bill.
Tom rightfully has a lot trust and anger issues with his father over abandoning him before. If his father only could have said he became sober for him he could've forgiven him. But no, dad couldn't remember his name.
My other favourite part is when Georgie's best friend tells her how she wouldn't let anyone help her.
Grief and depression are very similar in that isolation sense.
Marchetta really gets it.

Alcholics and depression aren't new to me. Family members letting you down isn't either. Nor is the confusion and letting life slip you by.
But this book didn't judge the characters for this.
This was sort of the polar opposite of Catcher in the Rye in that way.
You can forgive and be forgiven.
As much as I hate comparing authors I have to bring up Marcus Zusak.
No one called Tom a loser. Sure, they called him dickhead [or he imagined they did] but not loser.
The part in I am the Messenger was so cruel when his family were ashamed of him for his aimlessness and depression.
I'm a fan of Zusak's work but the compassion towards her characters really shines in Piper's Son.