Rose By Any Other Name
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Don'tcha just hate the way you get caught up in stuff without really wanting to? You make a wrong move, and before you know it you're in some weird scene that isn't you but ... how do you get out of it? Maybe you lied, maybe you stole, maybe you betrayed your closest friend. It happens. Yeah. Then it goes a bit further, and suddenly you're one of those jerks you hate because ... you can't be trusted.
Rose is all packed up. She's got a van full of petrol and a stack of CDs. She's got a surfboard in the back and a secret that won't go away. But that's okay. She also has enough attitude to light up the night sky.Then her mother decides to come along ... and Rose's road trip takes an unplanned U-turn, straight to the heart of last summer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian author McCarthy crafts a juicy family melodrama in her American debut. Set in her native country, McCarthy's novel unfolds from the point of view of Rose, a no-nonsense 19-year-old whose happy, orderly life is destroyed when her father leaves her mother for another woman. Coping with their own grief, Rose and her three older sisters struggle to keep their mom from falling apart. Alternating between a present-day road trip taken by Rose and her mom and flashbacks from a year earlier detailing the shocking events that precipitate their trip, the book hurtles its audience onto an emotional roller coaster. Right after Rose kisses a cute new boy and is about to fall in love, she comes home to find her mother in a ball on the floor, crying; this is how Rose learns of her father's plans. The changes in tone are jarring but also gripping, and readers won't know what's going to happen next. Occasionally all the flashbacks to varying times can be confusing, and Rose's older sisters seem like stereotypes. But there is an authenticity to the flawed and conflicted Rose that will draw readers into her world. Ages 14-up.
