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A review by whatmeganreads
Rose & Poe by Jack Todd
5.0
Oh, my heart. This story packs such an emotional punch! The writing is simple and lovely – you will absolutely fall in love with both Rose and Poe. Poe immediately brought to mind Big John from The Green Mile, Lennie from Of Mice and Men, and a few shades of Charlie from Flowers for Algernon. Rose is a large, simple woman who loves her son with all the fierceness of a mama tiger – she is his advocate, his care-giver, and his closest friend. When they are together, they rarely need or want for anything else. I wanted to pump my fist in the air every time Rose won a battle for Poe….and battle she did. From the very beginning, when the doctors thought it best he be taken away from her and institutionalized, to the time the army drafted him in spite of his mental state, to the accusations that arose after he was found running from the forrest, carrying his battered and bloody friend, desperately crying to ‘get-help-get-help’ – Rose never gave up on her boy. She’d just take a deep breath and throw herself back into the fray for her son.
My only tweaky item with this book was that the timeline was a teensy bit unclear. Thinking back on it now, it seems there are two main time periods in play here, but the transition from one to the other wasn’t completely clear to me at the time I was reading– it felt like the story was progressing fairly continuously, but I think there was actually a gap of time between Poe’s childhood and his being drafted into the Army (Vietnam era, I’m assuming) and the present-day trial storyline. But that didn’t at all detract from my enjoyment of the story.
The book is said to be loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which almost frightened me off (don’t ask – let’s just say I had a traumatizing AP English experience with Shakespeare and I’ll never be the same), but I didn’t really feel any Bard-ish vibes. This story is just amazing, no matter what the author based it on.
A story that’s big on feelings, I think it will stick with its readers for a long time. A big ol’ Poe-sized thanks to the lovelies at ECW Press, who allowed me to read a digital copy of this – I am so grateful it found me.
My only tweaky item with this book was that the timeline was a teensy bit unclear. Thinking back on it now, it seems there are two main time periods in play here, but the transition from one to the other wasn’t completely clear to me at the time I was reading– it felt like the story was progressing fairly continuously, but I think there was actually a gap of time between Poe’s childhood and his being drafted into the Army (Vietnam era, I’m assuming) and the present-day trial storyline. But that didn’t at all detract from my enjoyment of the story.
The book is said to be loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which almost frightened me off (don’t ask – let’s just say I had a traumatizing AP English experience with Shakespeare and I’ll never be the same), but I didn’t really feel any Bard-ish vibes. This story is just amazing, no matter what the author based it on.
A story that’s big on feelings, I think it will stick with its readers for a long time. A big ol’ Poe-sized thanks to the lovelies at ECW Press, who allowed me to read a digital copy of this – I am so grateful it found me.