The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta

I stumbled across a copy of The Piper's Son at the library a few weeks back and vaguely remembered it being on my Goodreads.  I picked it up and finally got to read it this week.  Here's the Goodreads blurb:

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.

This book was slow to start and a tad confusing for me.  It took a few chapters to really get a good idea what was going on but I think that that may have been intentional.  Tom feels lost and out of control and the start of the book does too.  I really enjoyed the varying viewpoint between Tom and his aunt Georgie.  I may not have agreed with everything that Tom said and did but I didn't think that his friends were actually being all that helpful either.  It was interesting to see them pull it back together.  My heart ached for Georgie, who was a woman in a place that NONE of us want to be.  She still loved her partner who slept with another women when Georgie had let him go to figure himself out.  Sam had fathered a son with that woman and now Georgie is unsure how she feels about Sam and Callum (his son).  Who wouldn't feel hurt and betrayed and want to lash out at someone but not know who to be the maddest at in that situation?  This book kept me reading until things started to turn back around for the Mackee family.  The ending isn't a magical happy ending where everything is suddenly perfect but it feels real and satisfying because life can't be perfect.  It's messy and hard but still beautiful.  This book was a real emotional rollercoaster.

You can find out more about Melina Marchetta and her work on her website.  You can also follow her on Twitter.  Click here to add The Piper's Son on Goodreads.  The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta earns 4 Fairies for being an emotional ride through the journey that is grief, loss and healing.