Looking for Alibrandi – Book Review
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Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta – Book Review
Looking for Alibrandi is a passionate story about a young girls painful and enlightening journey into adulthood.
The story centres around Josephine Alibrandi – an agressive, disatisfied, and confused final year student of Italian extraction. She has one burning ambition: to find her place in affluent society and to break free from her embarassing, stifling italian family.
As the story progresses, Josephine discovers a vital truth through tragic circumstances. She comes to realize that the perfect world consists more than gorgeous hairstyles, rich boyfriends and social privileges.
Melina Marchetta has written a clever and srong story. She expertly uses the notion of suffering through conflict throughout the novel. This helps to instigate a positive change in Josephines perception of herself and of the world in general.
It could be said that the book goes beyond the theme of teenage angst. It paints a vivid picture of self-knowledge and self-acceptance in the making.
A strong feature in the book is Josephines discontent
and anger. She is unhappy with a lot of things in her life. She gets angry when they call her an ethnic and a wog. She is bothered by the fact that she is illegitimate and unhappy the she is a mere English Scholarship student in an exclusive girls school. Josephine is also upset that she will never be accepted as an equal by rich school kid Ivy Loyd. She is particularly angry with her meddling grandmother (Nonna), whom she has never forgiven for abandoning her teenage pregant mum and lying about her father.
It is worth noting the formidable relationship that exists between Josephine and her grandmother. Their robust characters add sugar and spice to the text. The conflict that exists tetween the two, helps Josephine to confront and accept her feelings, in particular towards her Italian roots. One of the main pivotal points in the book, which earns her self-insight and personal freedom, is when her absent father, Michael Andretti, and her boyfriend, Jacob Coote, enter her life. The reason why its such a crucial event is because they come into her life as rescuers. Her father, who is a lawyer, rescues her from a threatening legal suit. It involves the famous and affluent Mr. Bishop and his daughter, Carly (who has her nose punched by Josephine after being called a wog). Its interesting to point out the symbolism used by the author to convey Josephines social envy. Metaphorically, it shows Josephine trying to destroy the thing she holds sacred but cannot have. Jacob Coote also rescues her from a potential rape incident.
Even though the characterization of Michael Andretti is unsubstantial, both men act as catalysts that bring about change through conflict. For example, when her father