So Much to Tell You

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Summary: A truly captivating experience
Review: Reading 'So much to tell you' was a truly captivating , impressive experience......all thanks to John Marsden. The novel had such meaning and reality that all can relate to parts of our lives. Marina's struggle to find her place and who she is, is written in an autobiographical diary in which she expresses her deep and inner feelings, more than she would of liked too.

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Summary: This was a excellent book to read.
Review: I don't read many books but when I saw the tittle, So Much To Tell You, it just caught my eye. It made me wonder what was so much to tell. I just had to pick it up and read it. In the past, I would start to read a book but by the time I got to the middle I had lost interest in it. I have to say that this book keep my attention. The auther did a wonderful job of giving you a little information at a time and kept you wondering through the whole book. It really keeps your attention. The ending was very good and unexpected!

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Summary: John Marsden's done it again!!!
Review: He's come up with another fantastic book!! This time we are faced with a girl at a boarding school who has never spoken since something awful happened to her. But what IS that awful happening that has shattered her life??? In the meantime she confides in us as her diary, tells us about the people around her, what goes on in her life and old memories. Each page reveals more of the mystery which had me hooked. I couldn't put this book down until I'd read the whole book. The ending is completely unexpected and took me by suprise. Try it!

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Summary: A wonderful book that was impossible to put down!
Review: When Marina is sent to boarding school, she learns that the students are required to keep journals. Gradually, Marina starts to confide in her journal. Since Marina doesn't talk, writing is her only form of communication, until a nice girl in her dorm begins to talk to her, unlike the others. Marina and this girl become friends, even without words. Throughout the book, the story of who and where Marina's father is becomes more clear. Also, why she doesn't speak. I thought that this book was great, and I could not stop reading it! John Marsden does a wonderful job of gradually unfolding the mystery of Marina, as he does in some of his previous books. All in all, this book is excellent and I strongly reccomend it to all!

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Summary: Confusing yet powerful
Review: So much To Tell You was written from a teenage girl's point of view. She didn't talk, wouldn't talk. We figure out that her father is in jail for abusing her, in a way. This book was, oh, hard to grasp, I guess. It was so complex yet simple. Kind of weird. I liked it, but it might be hard to understand and maybe disturbing for young teens who aren't mature.

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Summary: One disturbing yet fascinating and intriguing novel.
Review: I have so much to tell you about this book. It is an Australian icon, written by one of Australian teenagers most admired writers. John Marsden creates a character who is in the depth of emotional trauma and unable to communicate with the outside world. Marina is a fascinating character, through her diary the reader is able to comprehend her detachment from society and her inability to reveal her feelings. Marina's emotionless facade slowly deteriorates as she returns to the reality of her world. The book preaches a million lessons which any reader will most certainly ponder, but, not in such a way that the book lacks a captivating story line. Marina's ability to forgive her father for distorting her face with acid and her effort to survive in the face of adversity are an inspiration. So Much To Tell You is easy to read, yet, encompasses a story which reveals too many morals to ever fully explore. Hoo Roo!

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Summary: Will she ever talk again?
Review: I personally did not enjoy So Much To Tell You as much as Marsden's previous works, because it lacked that descriptive quality one loved about him. However, unlike `Letters from the Inside,' (which was also in written form), I found the book somewhat... evolved.
To a certain extent, the emotions and the curiosity about her father and their estranged relationship was quite powerful, though one may not notice at the time, yet certainly not to the extent that I could not put the book down.

Because the book was small, it was a fairly light read and left one with a feeling of, I guess, contentment, and even though So Much To Tell You ended as so many books have in the past, (rather cliché), the relationship with Marina's mother was still sour and unresolved, and one got the feeling that just Marina and her father completed a family, and it made the reader feel it's alright to live like that. This is an important issue for an author, more so one as respected and loved as children's author John Marsden, to address. There are many families, especially in this day and age, with similar problems, with children who feel incomplete because one member of their family, specifically a care-giver, does not live with them.

So, I guess, to sum it up, So Much To Tell You was a light-hearted, yet still quite deep in some aspects, novel about a young teenage girl resorting to the only thing she felt comfortable with; silence. But as the tale began to unfold, and she began to realize how much she needed to communicate and care for those around her, she began to realize that silence was not such a comfortable thing anymore, and though the process was long, it was the familiarity and day-to-day aspects that she had taken for granted that brought her back, and onto the road of self-discovery.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the trouble
Review: "So Much to Tell You" is a downer. It's also a superbly conceived, psychologically complex, and deeply affecting and disturbing story. I seem to side with those adults who are simply transfixed by the symbolism and anguish that seep through Marina's journal entries, rather than siding with the majority of adolescent readers who often seem bored and unmoved, or at the very least confused, by this book.

"So Much To Tell You," although short, is not an easy read. It is told, I believe entirely, through the journal entries of a girl who has been so badly scarred, both emotionally and physically, that she has become catatonic. It takes a while to puzzle out what's going on. But that's the genius of the narrative structure -- the reader's reward comes from guessing about what happened to Marina, and about what she's truly feeling, from the pages of a journal that becomes more and more intimate as she goes along.

For teachers, this is just great (I read the book while working toward a teaching certificate). Not only is the journal entry format novel and challenging for young readers -- it also invites them to identify with Marina and share her hopes and fears. I read it as being symbolic: the horror and pain of Marina's situation is really a metaphor for the general anguish we all feel going through adolescence. As with Robert Cormier's books, it seems Marsden is deliberately choosing a truly horrific, possibly exaggerrated situation to provoke kids and to drive home a point.

And that point, clearly, is empathy. Marina's story illustrates how young people feel when they believe they are different -- how they magnify small injuries and give great weight to small acts of kindness and friendship. In Marina's final decision to speak to her father, she shows the way to healing and wholeness for readers who may be struggling with their own, hopefully lesser, demons.

Unfortunately, it seems from other reviews here that many adolescents (especially boys) don't react to the book this way. To this, I can only say that I'd still recommend it be taught -- but that teachers go slowly, do a lot of class discussions, and ask a lot of leading questions to encourage kids to identify and sympathize with Marina's situation and apply it to their own lives. It's not a "fun" book -- there is little humor, and going where it invites is a lot of emotional work. But it's worth it -- the book was so good I cried, and I never cry because of books.

One idea for teachers -- have kids identify a theme or themes from the book, and make newspaper clipping collages to illustrate. Write or explain why they chose those images. F 'rinstance: "Feeling left out": Clown, bum, overweight; "Alone": Iceberg, fetal positon; etc. Cut-out phrases work well, too.