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heytherekaity's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Kidnapping, Suicide, Confinement, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Abandonment, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Body horror, Violence, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Blood, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
binreads's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Bind date with a book!
I don’t know. I expected more. Especially with the tag line:
I don’t know. I expected more. Especially with the tag line:
“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 figured this was based off of Gypsy Rose right when I got this book.
I guess where this story lacks is none of the craziness happens until the end? Which was a great twist ending don’t get me wrong. I felt like the book started off strong, middle felt lackluster and end was good.
Spoilers ahead!
i kinda wish we got to be along side Rose while she was planning this whole thing out. The whole side story with Phil and Alex were kind of useless? I guess it gave us more sympathy for Rose but that was about it.
And the Dad thing. I can imagine it’s be tough meeting a child you didn’t want years later but he was almost as bad as Patty! How you gonna find your daughter, say you want her in your life then drop her??? I did get upset when Rose starting lying about cancer but honestly can we even blame her? She has a mother who abused her and a father who even after meeting her, never wanted her. But I’m telling y’all it was that wife Kim who caused that rift between them. Gave me MAJOR Karen vibes. Never gave Rose a chance.
I also find it hard to believe that their newborn child goes missing and y’all don’t think to check up on the other child you abandoned….like not even once???
Patty was a crazy lunatic though. Even though she was correct that her daughter was up to something, but god damn girl right away she’s plotting and planning. I hated reading her chapters honestly I just wanted her to shut up.
Like mother like daughter. I hope Rose can get her teeth fixed and live her best life now? 😂🥴
Overall, a bit of a bore :(
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Torture, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Cancer, Medical content, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Vomit, and Body shaming
Minor: Eating disorder, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Suicide
sleeson's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Mental illness and Toxic relationship
Minor: Kidnapping and Stalking
thesaltiestlibrarian's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. The opinions herein are mine alone and may not reflect the views of the author, publisher, or distributor.
Okay. Here’s the thing. I’ve been interested in true crime since I was 14. So that’s an even 14 years I’ve been up in true crime’s business. I watched the whole documentary on Gyspy Rose Blanchard and have read the articles available. When I got Gypsy Rose vibes from this book’s summary, it activated my grabby-hands. I’m pleased to say that while this book draws inspiration from that case, it’s an entirely different story in its own right.
Rose Gold Watts had been sick since she could remember. She had a wheelchair, a feeding tube, and the sympathy of everyone who met this sick little child. Then one day she learns of Ipecac syrup and its unfortunate tendency to make people vomit after they’ve ingested it. And isn’t it weird that her mother never gets sick after eating the same things as Rose Gold?
Surprise! Rose Gold’s not sick, but her mother very much is. Munchausen’s by proxy is a real illness, and Patty Watts suffers from it hard core. Rose Gold tells a close friend that she thinks her mother is giving her Ipecac syrup, and her friend--rightly so, I may add--calls the police. As it goes, there’s a trial, Rose Gold testifies against her mother, and Patty spends the next five years in prison. Rose Gold takes her in after she serves out her sentence. What could go wrong?
This book is twisted. But not in the “wow who would do this omg” kind of way, like it’s unbelievable. It’s twisted because deranged people like Patty Watts actually exist. “But, Caitlin!” you say, “I thought you just said that Munchausen’s by proxy (MBP) is an illness?!?!?!”
Yes, it is. That doesn’t disqualify Patty Watts from being out of her gourd. Depression and OCD are illnesses, but I’d never in my life even considerpoisoning my family for sympathy. I have physical reactions to giving people small mistruths because of my OCD. Imagine what would happen if I gave my husband Ipecac. I’d vomit too, from sheer guilt.
“Rose Gold was a victim!” you say. Yes, she was. But she also had so much growing that she could have done and held onto her bitterness and thirst for vengeance instead.
Listen, I’m not saying this book wasn’t enjoyable. It was. We have to come to terms, though, with the fact that these people exist. It’s twisted because it’s real. It’s interesting because healthy individuals don’t do the things that Rose Gold and Patty Watts do. It’s enjoyable because we get to live out a nightmare scenario in a safe space, and that’s called catharsis.
I usually don’t go for “thriller” type books, and I think mainly that’s due to me being terrible at picking them. But Wrobel did a really good job here. I gave it three stars because the plot was predictable, and that’s a forgivable point seeing how this is a debut novel.
Wrobel’s writing is tense and crackles the story into fractures as it goes. I probably shouldn’t be impressed, but I am. Usually MFA thesis books do little to live up to the quality you expect from that degree’s program. Wrobel lives up to and past that bar, though. That’s what impresses me. This book served as her MFA thesis, and I didn’t hate it. The plot moved. The characters were three dimensional and as rotten as people can be in this here real world.
A couple of events happened for what felt like no reason, and I couldn’t figure out how to fit them into the frame of the story. Every piece of dialogue needs to do something for the story, whether it’s building character, revealing something new, moving the plot, or building the world. The treadmill and the garbage can broke the tension when they happened instead of ratcheting it up. Patty’s backstory could have been incorporated better instead of just brought up and left for us to suss out, too. I would have LOVED if Wrobel had found a way for that to really play into her personality and character, instead of giving her a sad backstory for what seemed like the sake of having a sad backstory.
Overall, not bad! Definitely had trouble putting it down. Definitely needed fine tuning in those few areas, but like I said. Not bad for a debut.
Okay. Here’s the thing. I’ve been interested in true crime since I was 14. So that’s an even 14 years I’ve been up in true crime’s business. I watched the whole documentary on Gyspy Rose Blanchard and have read the articles available. When I got Gypsy Rose vibes from this book’s summary, it activated my grabby-hands. I’m pleased to say that while this book draws inspiration from that case, it’s an entirely different story in its own right.
Rose Gold Watts had been sick since she could remember. She had a wheelchair, a feeding tube, and the sympathy of everyone who met this sick little child. Then one day she learns of Ipecac syrup and its unfortunate tendency to make people vomit after they’ve ingested it. And isn’t it weird that her mother never gets sick after eating the same things as Rose Gold?
Surprise! Rose Gold’s not sick, but her mother very much is. Munchausen’s by proxy is a real illness, and Patty Watts suffers from it hard core. Rose Gold tells a close friend that she thinks her mother is giving her Ipecac syrup, and her friend--rightly so, I may add--calls the police. As it goes, there’s a trial, Rose Gold testifies against her mother, and Patty spends the next five years in prison. Rose Gold takes her in after she serves out her sentence. What could go wrong?
This book is twisted. But not in the “wow who would do this omg” kind of way, like it’s unbelievable. It’s twisted because deranged people like Patty Watts actually exist. “But, Caitlin!” you say, “I thought you just said that Munchausen’s by proxy (MBP) is an illness?!?!?!”
Yes, it is. That doesn’t disqualify Patty Watts from being out of her gourd. Depression and OCD are illnesses, but I’d never in my life even considerpoisoning my family for sympathy. I have physical reactions to giving people small mistruths because of my OCD. Imagine what would happen if I gave my husband Ipecac. I’d vomit too, from sheer guilt.
“Rose Gold was a victim!” you say. Yes, she was. But she also had so much growing that she could have done and held onto her bitterness and thirst for vengeance instead.
Listen, I’m not saying this book wasn’t enjoyable. It was. We have to come to terms, though, with the fact that these people exist. It’s twisted because it’s real. It’s interesting because healthy individuals don’t do the things that Rose Gold and Patty Watts do. It’s enjoyable because we get to live out a nightmare scenario in a safe space, and that’s called catharsis.
I usually don’t go for “thriller” type books, and I think mainly that’s due to me being terrible at picking them. But Wrobel did a really good job here. I gave it three stars because the plot was predictable, and that’s a forgivable point seeing how this is a debut novel.
Wrobel’s writing is tense and crackles the story into fractures as it goes. I probably shouldn’t be impressed, but I am. Usually MFA thesis books do little to live up to the quality you expect from that degree’s program. Wrobel lives up to and past that bar, though. That’s what impresses me. This book served as her MFA thesis, and I didn’t hate it. The plot moved. The characters were three dimensional and as rotten as people can be in this here real world.
A couple of events happened for what felt like no reason, and I couldn’t figure out how to fit them into the frame of the story. Every piece of dialogue needs to do something for the story, whether it’s building character, revealing something new, moving the plot, or building the world. The treadmill and the garbage can broke the tension when they happened instead of ratcheting it up. Patty’s backstory could have been incorporated better instead of just brought up and left for us to suss out, too. I would have LOVED if Wrobel had found a way for that to really play into her personality and character, instead of giving her a sad backstory for what seemed like the sake of having a sad backstory.
Overall, not bad! Definitely had trouble putting it down. Definitely needed fine tuning in those few areas, but like I said. Not bad for a debut.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Bullying
Moderate: Cancer, Cursing, Eating disorder, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Physical abuse, and Infertility
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
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