The Children of the Roses
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The sequel to Warren Adler's iconic novel turned international box-office hit "The War of the Roses"
Warren Adler’s "The War of the Roses" leaped into the public consciousness and has since remained an essential thread in a wider tapestry of divorce iconography. Now, Adler presents us with the chandelier-shattering legacy of Barbara and Jonathan Rose relived in their children, Josh and Evie, in a hilarious sequel to the original iconic tale about the perils of marriage, divorce, and the destructive power of materialism. Unlike the legendary Roses, Josh’s marriage to Victoria should have all the qualities of an everlasting union. But when an innocent caper involving missing Milky Ways catapults out of control at their son’s elite private school, they find themselves entering into a shattering warfare of a different kind. Armed with the emotional mayhem inherited from their parents, as well as compounded pressures involving a depraved headmaster, clandestine affairs, and Victoria’s male-hating mother, The Children of the Roses presents a gripping story of the lengths to which parents will go to protect their children. Little more than a child herself, Josh’s ever-sympathetic and over-stuffed sister Evie lavishes her ‘food-is-love’ obsession on her beloved niece and nephew coping with their own sense of loss. Meanwhile, Michael and Emily, soon-to-be children of divorce, orchestrate their own plan to keep their family together at all costs. Adler, once again, demonstrates his storytelling mastery by revealing the intricate blending of the past with the present, and how time unravels all seemingly perfect things to be darkly and even comically dysfunctional.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Adler recreates the epic marital bickering that made the original War of the Roses(1989) such juicy movie material, but this tepid sequel pales despite the potential offered by the troubled marriage of Josh Rose, the son of the spouses who were killed by a falling chandelier after squabbling their way through the first book. Josh has all the trappings of success a satisfying job as creative director of a Manhattan ad agency, two beautiful children and a gorgeous albeit icy wife, Victoria, a former lawyer who was also damaged by her parent's bitter divorce. His stability is threatened, however, when he succumbs to the temptations of his chief designer, a married woman named Angela Bocci whose passion for risqu semi-public sex leads to a hot affair. Josh manages to hide his infidelity from Victoria as the couple struggle to keep their 11-year-old son, Michael, from being thrown out of an elite private school for a petty thievery incident. But all is lost when Angela's spouse, Dominic, tries to use the affair to blackmail Josh before revealing Josh's infidelity to Victoria, who is blackmailed into a separate series of erotic shenanigans by Michael's diabolical headmaster. Adler scores points with sly irony in the early infidelity chapters, but the story flattens when Angela demands a divorce and the couple's joint custody experiment begins. The generic bickering leads to an outrageous climax in which a near-tragic house fire causes the couple to rethink their separation; the sappy, over-the-top ending comes off as a half-baked attempt to outdo the savage humor of the original. There are some funny moments as Adler sets up his marital chess pieces, but this follow-up succumbs to sequelitis.
