"A good text presents memorable characters to whom the reader can relate.
Choose a main character from your text and show how they develop through the text. By Mona Rouhani .
In the novel Looking for Alibrandi By Melina Marchetta there are many aspects of life that the main character, Josie, has to face. Marchetta explores the issues that can be related to the teenagers today for example single-parent families, romantic relationships, social status differences, ethnicity, youth suicide and the stress of the HSC. In the novel she learns to deal with different people in different relationships. Marchetta expresses her ideas with techniques such as emotive language, realistic dialogue and humour.
Many people can relate to not knowing one of their parents. In this novel Looking for Alibrandi, Josie shows the story of her father (Michael Andretti), returning after 17 years of not knowing Josie existed. Josie always had an image of her father, but when she first met him, she was surprised because she was very wrong. "I had thought he"d be tall. He wasn't- Josie despised her father and didn't want anything to do with him. They even promised that they wouldn't interfere in each others lives, until she was forced to call on him for help with commotion she got herself into at school. This gave the both of them an opportunity to further develop their relationship. Josie was offered a job by him "How about you come and work for me at the chamber?" He offered Josie this job to stay closer to her and to be more involved in her life. Josie slowly but finally realised how good it feels to have a father. "I knew how it felt to walk alongside ones father - It was a great feeling" Josie went from enjoying his discomfort and dispising him to adoring spending every moment with him. "But I adored being with Michael. Finding out what he was like was great." Josie even grew to love her father, even tough he was not their for her, during the firs 17 years of her life.