Point of View

"Saving Francesca" is told in first person, present tense narration by Francesca herself. This means that Francesca speaks using "me" and "I" and that the only character whose thoughts the reader has access to is her alone. The reader is held very close to Francesca's emotions and thoughts, as these are the most important factors to understanding the novel as a whole. Even though the reader has full access into Francesca's mind, she is sometimes an unreliable narrator, not because she seeks to mislead, but because she struggles to understand what is happening to her family. Her memories shift throughout the novel and her perceptions of other people (and herself) range from extremely shrewd to wildly inaccurate. She is a classic teenage narrator, with wild high-flying emotions, an active imagination, and a complex set of social relationships, all of which are reflected in her narration. Because...