Looking for Alibrandi

Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen, in her final year at an exclusive Sydney Catholic school where she is a scholarship student among the daughters of the wealthy. Sharp, funny, and quick to anger, Josie is caught between worlds: the traditional Italian-Australian family that both smothers and sustains her, the shame she feels about being illegitimate, and her longing to belong somewhere she can finally call her own.

Over the course of one turbulent year, everything Josie thought she knew begins to shift. The father she has never met walks back into her life, she falls for a boy from a very different background, and long-buried family secrets—especially her grandmother's—come to light. When tragedy strikes close to home, Josie is forced to reconsider who she is and what really matters.

A beloved classic of Australian young-adult fiction, Melina Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi is a warm, funny, and moving coming-of-age story about identity, family, culture, and the year a girl finally begins to understand herself.