Book Review: The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns

Gal Garner isn't your typical 36-year-old woman. She's a bit of a loner, brutally honest, obsessed with rose breeding, a ruthless biology teacher, a dialysis patient, and living the single life... until her niece enters her world and rocks the boat of mundanity.

If you ask me, she needed it. I was captured by the delicate facts displayed of rose breeding and the daily life of a dialysis patient, but I found myself desperately wanting to jump into the book at the end of every chapter and explain to Gal that she's missing the point. Life is delicate, much like those roses she breeds, and instead she should be drawing her focus elsewhere.

In every book I read, I find myself questioning where I would place myself in these relationships. Would I befriend a woman who has an interest in something I've never given much thought about? Would her sarcasm be too much to handle? I found some parts of the book predictable, but then I was left to question as a twist was thrown into the mix. But in the end, the predictability from the beginning came back to fruition.

Every so often the chapters were divided by a short excerpt from a professional rose handler's book. It was quite intriguing as I learned snippets of rose breeding expert advice while it craftily tied into the book's underlying saga. Talk of aphids and destruction in roses easily foreshadowed or followed the turmoil and destruction involving the characters and their relationships. Cleverly done.

I received a free book and was compensated for this BlogHer Club book review, but all opinions expressed are my own. If you'd like to check out discussions on BlogHer about the book, go here. I'll be discussing there.