this book is like a dragon egg. it is somewhat unusual compared to others of its kind, and it is pretty, but you know that when it hatches it is going to let loose some magnificent beast beyond human reckoning. 
 marchetta is a magnificent dragon. 
 and this book is good, and you can see the beginnings of what she will become, but it is definitely a first novel, before she understood her own power. 
 i reluctantly love josie alibrandi (although we are not friends, so i must call her josephine) she is a complete teenager: she picks silly fights with her mother and grandmother and acts like a little brat, she has a completely mystifying relationship with a boy whose behavior is equally littered with teenage sulks and irrational outbursts, she succumbs to peer pressure and complicates her own life, she gets in fights and acts out in wildly erratic and melodramatic ways. completely unlike myself as a teenager. koff. 
 but even though most of the time you want to smack her and send her to her room, you can tell that once she reigns in all that energy and free-floating rage, she is going to turn into a captivating adult character. probably in another marchetta book. 
 her relationship with her father is both uncomfortable to watch, but also ultimately satisfying. i kind of love how reluctant they both are to mean something to each other, and how awfully they behave. particularly him - even when he is trying to be nice, he is kind of a jerk, and it is oddly refreshing to have the adult character being just off enough to not be a good role model, but not flat-out evil the way it would be so easy to write in a less ambitious author's novel. 
 and her mother. ohhh. i want her to be happy. 
 that's all i can say there. 
 although most of the sandwiches i eat are thicker than this book, there is somehow plenty of room for her characters to grow, to come to realizations that feel natural and not literary. it doesn't feel smooshed, despite it being such a short book. 
 the italian-australian experience is one that i have encountered in other marchetta books,briefly, but nowhere else in my life. and i would have been blissfully unaware of this tension without her, but i really found it fascinating. not that people are cruel and xenophobic and classist, but the historical segments about her grandmother's experiences really came alive for me in a bigger way than the contemporary segments. i loved her grandmother, and if marchetta were ever to delve into historical fiction, i would be the first one there . 
 so the three stars is probably only in relation to what she has become, which is a consistent five-star writer. it is definitely worth reading, i just think it feels more like a typical YA book in scope, with some unexpected barbs than a marchetta masterpiece that kicks every other book out of its way. with its dragon wings.