Looking for Alibrandi

TOPIC:

Josie Alibrandi goes “looking” for herself she discovers she needs to create herself.

In the novel “looking for Alibrandi, written by Melina Marchetta,” there are many different situations and feelings that Josephine Alibrandi goes through, in order to figure out who she really is as a person. Josie also has to deal with the normal up and down roller coaster ride of being a teenage girl. At the end of her journey she has very different views on certain topics to the original thoughts that she had at the beginning. Josephine has to cope with different aspects of peer pressure, religion, sexuality, illegitimacy but also family relationships and secrets and death. She finds out a lot more about herself and her family and friends than she already knew, maybe even too much to handle at times. Josephine realizes that she doesn’t really know who she is and that she now has to create herself. The hardest thing for Josie is going to be figuring out how she is going to create herself, with aspects of every thing that is going on in her life.

On Josie’s path to finding herself she discovered her hatred for her father was mostly due to the fact of how he left and treated her mother Christina. After officially meeting her father, Michael Andretti for the first time she realized she felt very different towards him. By Josie hearing her father’s point of view of his and Christina’s relationship, she lost a lot of anger and therefore was able to forgive him.

“I walked past my class mates with Michael Andretti beside me and for a few minutes I knew how it felt walking alongside one’s father. It was a great feeling.”

This quote from the book helps us to understand that Josie realized she had a lot in common with him, they got along really well and she liked having him around not only as a father figure but as well as a friend.

“You were married. You slept with Marcus Sandford while you were a married woman.”

This is a quote from Josie when she and her nonna Katia become really close. Josephine starts to understand that Katia knows how she feels more than she thought. She also notices Katia was once a young girl in the world, with problems very similar to the ones Josie is going through. Josephine discovers that Katia had an affair with Marcus Standford, which has been hidden away from the rest of the family for years. Everything Josie originally thought her background was, plain and simple, she now knows that it wasn’t the case, all black and white. This incident helped Josephine to grow and not take for granted the family she has that loves and cares about her.

Peer pressure is another aspect of life we see that makes Josie a stronger person. It helps her stand up for herself and do what she feels is right not what other people want of her. “But then when his hands went up my uniform and I felt them between my thighs and I looked up to see a poster of a motor bike that said ‘Get something between your legs’ on it, I realized that I could be losing my virginity in Jacob’s bedroom with his father in the other room, completely without thinking. “ No more, Jacob,”

I said trying to catch my breath. “”Oh, come on Josie it will be okay.” “ I just think we should stop now before we go to far.”

Josie doesn’t give into Jacob in this particular part of the novel. She tells him how she feels and in the end he respects both her and her wishes. This shows