The Piper's Son

Title: The Piper’s Son 
Author: Melina Marchetta

Series: Companion with Saving Francesca

Genres: Contemporary, Realistic, New Adult, Fiction

Publisher: Viking

Released: 1 March 2010

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com 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

My Review: I could read about Tom Mackee and his friends forever.  The Piper’s Son  concludes my venture into Marchetta’s contemporary fiction and I can safely say that this, and Jellicoe Road are my two favorites, which is fitting considering they were my first and last (respectively).

Although he didn’t see like a stand out character to me in Saving Francesca (Jimmy was my favorite of the group) being able to read Tom’s story took my breath away.  Maybe that’s how it was planned all along, give us quiet seemingly steady Tom and then turn him into one of my most favorite protagonists in fiction . . . hmmmm. I can also honestly say that Marchetta is a master of her craft.  Never before have I been able to read a novel from two different points of view and be equally interested in both.  Normally I skip one POV in favor of another.  With The Piper’s Son that never happened.  I was just as interested in what was happening with Georgie as I was with Tom and the gang.

Every scene was so unique and beautiful.  Again, the way that Marchetta is able to take something so simple, and make it so impactful, so incredible, and so lovely is unmatched.  If you like contemporary YA, or just fantastic fiction, I highly, highly recommend this novel (read Francesca first, just don't discount how awesome this is.)

I am so grateful for authors like Marchetta who are constantly surprising, and bring fantastic things to the young adult genre and to the book world.  Also, this is a classic example of why goodreads is amazing.  Without goodreads I never would have heard of Melina Marchetta or her novels.  It is because of my goodreads friends that I became interested in this author and her work, and because of them that I’m able to recommend this and all of Marchetta’s other novels to people I know that would have otherwise not her about her.  Incredible novel.  Incredible journey.  Cannot wait to delve into the fantasy books of Marchetta’s.