Review: Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel

Posted in 2 Stars by stephaniesbookreviews

49223060. sy475

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife in this tightly drawn debut that peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships…

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold.

Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar.

After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes.

Patty insists all she wants is to reconcile their differences. She says she’s forgiven Rose Gold for turning her in and testifying against her. But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty Watts always settles a score.

Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling…

And she’s waited such a long time for her mother to come home.

I received a copy of this title via NetGalley. It does not impact my review.

Darling Rose Gold publishes March 17, 2020.

Well, this was underwhelming. I’ve seen so many great review for Darling Rose Gold and I was so hyped to read it, but it ended up falling far short of my expectations.

The story is told through alternate POVs from Patty in the present and Rose Gold in the past. I have to say I found Patty’s chapters much more interesting. I felt like Rose Gold’s were all backstory and really seemed to drag. It covers her life during the years her mother was in prison and I thought it could have been shortened. There were some important things that came back in to play later, but so much of it was just needless detail and I found myself pretty bored. In Patty’s chapters I felt like the story was at least moving forward.

Both characters were kind of crazy and unapologetically awful, which was kind of fun. I was actually hoping for for them to act even more devious than they did, though. I felt that the story followed a very cliched path and anybody who has read this genre before will be able to see what’s going to happen from miles away.

Overall, Darling Rose Gold was not really for me. There was some fun characterization, but for the most part it was really predictable and seemed to drag a lot. I didn’t find out until after I was done reading that this story is apparently very heavily inspired by the real life case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee. I had never heard of the case before, but looked it up and there are a lot of similarities (like, a lot) with this book. While this book wasn’t for me, I have seen a lot of other really great reviews, so it may still be worth checking out.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2.5 Stars

28Feb2020

Reviewing the Unreviewed: February 2020

Posted in Uncategorized by stephaniesbookreviews

I read a lot of books that I don’t end up reviewing for whatever reason. Some because I wasn’t impressed. Some because I didn’t have the time. Some I just wasn’t feeling it on whatever particular day I finished. Reviewing the Unreviewed is my monthly post where I share my few thoughts on all the books I didn’t formally review.

45169602. sy475

Carpool (Milford College #1) by Noelle Adams. Read January 31-February 2. 3.5 Stars.

Jennifer frustrated me sometimes, but I did ship her and Marcus. I liked the small town setting and would’ve liked to have seen even more of that. Overall, this was a cute romance. I got it as a free e-book deal and I’m not sure if it’s still available for free, but definitely worth checking into if you’re a Romance reader.

44123425

Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning. Read February 4-6. 3.5 Stars.

This had a few issues, but it was cute. I liked Liv’s family and how close she was with her brother. I liked how quickly the football team accepted her, even if it felt a little unrealistic. I thought the romance with Liv and Grey was pretty adorable, too.

There were some things that didn’t really work for me, though. I thought Liv picked up football way too quickly. We’re basically supposed to believe that she’s never played before, but she has a savant level spiral and is a good athlete and it takes her no time at all to be basically their best player. There’s also obviously a big dramatic moment with the romance and I thought it was resolved a little too easily. I read the part where things are supposed to be explained and afterwards I honestly had to re-read it because there was nothing in it that seemed worthy of a resolution to me. There were a few other nitpicky things here and there, but overall this was enjoyable.

30253700. sy475

Anti-Stepbrother by Tijan. Read February 14-15. 4 Stars.

I loved this so much! It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, it ended up being much more. Summer was pretty quirky, which doesn’t always work for me, but I found her likable. I thought most of the characters were pretty likable and the angst and drama were on the low side, which was nice. I absolutely adored Caden and Summer together. It was kind of an enemies-to-friends-to-more story and I was here for it. I loved their friendship and it was kind of a slow burn to them getting together. I appreciated the “fade to black” love scenes. It really focused more on their relationship and feelings and it was so sweet and I just loved it. I’ve been disappointed by a lot of books lately, but this one totally broke me out of my slump.

36615592. sy475

Ryan’s Bed by Tijan. Read February 15-16. 3 Stars.

I had a hard time getting into this one. It was a pretty depressing read, mostly exploring grief. I think there were some very realistic emotions, but I wish that more attention would have been drawn to how Mackenzie’s coping methods were pretty unhealthy. And even though I liked the relationship between her and Ryan, I couldn’t help feeling like Ryan kind of took advantage of her.

45874065

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. Read February 16-18. 3 Stars.

I thought this was ok, but not anything special. I’m kind of bummed I wasted one of YA BOTM credits on it. I liked Pip and Ravi, though Pip’s behavior did annoy me sometimes. There were several things I rolled my eyes at, but for the most part I thought the evolution of the mystery was pretty well done. It felt a little too long, though, and I lost interest well before the end of the book. And there were a couple scenes that felt completely lifted from tv shows I’ve watched.