The beauty of reading is that you can experience other people going outside their comfort zones with-out apparently leaving your own. This collection of novels, while varied in subject matter, genre, and age appeal, is similar in that they all present the reality of feeling unsafe in one way or another.

When I started Saving Francesca, I had to remind myself that this wasn’t Josie Alibrandi’s story. Initially, this was hard because the similarities are striking – Italian family, strong mother and daughter, Catholic education system and the search for self – but it became easier as I read on, because Melina Marchetta’s writing has matured so much since she wrote Looking for Alibrandi. It is more confident, and delivers the reader all that is promised.