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A review by starrybooker
Rosewater by Liv Little
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
This was a really frustrating book that I really liked but wanted to love more. Elsie is an absolute mess of a protagonist that you can’t help but root for - a down-on-her-luck poet who feels discounted from life and is desperately searching for any kind of stability. She doesn’t always make the right decisions, but she does it all with such sincerity and this strive to be better that you can’t help but root for her.
When Liv Little’s prose gets going it really takes you by the hand and sweeps you into the world of this book. The middle section in particular I felt she had gotten into her groove and it was where the book most shined.
However. You can tell this book is a debut. There were sections of writing, particularly the beginning and end, which felt quite clunky, particularly with the dialogue. While this is character-driven work, the plot points that were there often felt quite contrived and clearly only existed to get Elsie from point A to B. Yes, all plot technically exists to do that, but as a reader it should feel natural.
I also think first-person present was the wrong tense to use. It’s a very hard narrative technique to pull off, and it highlighted some of the clunkier plots points that might have been hidden by good prose in a third or first-person past. There was a lot of ‘I pick up the phone, I go to the next room, I pick up my pen’, all quite serviceable writing could have done with more descriptive detail.
I was also completely blindsided by the last 20 pages of the book, which came completely out of nowhere and just felt like Little didn’t have the confidence in an ending, and so added in a ‘dramatic moment’ to bring everything together.
A good book that had the potential to be great - there’s so much in Rosewater that is compelling, and I can’t wait to read what Little does next.
When Liv Little’s prose gets going it really takes you by the hand and sweeps you into the world of this book. The middle section in particular I felt she had gotten into her groove and it was where the book most shined.
However. You can tell this book is a debut. There were sections of writing, particularly the beginning and end, which felt quite clunky, particularly with the dialogue. While this is character-driven work, the plot points that were there often felt quite contrived and clearly only existed to get Elsie from point A to B. Yes, all plot technically exists to do that, but as a reader it should feel natural.
I also think first-person present was the wrong tense to use. It’s a very hard narrative technique to pull off, and it highlighted some of the clunkier plots points that might have been hidden by good prose in a third or first-person past. There was a lot of ‘I pick up the phone, I go to the next room, I pick up my pen’, all quite serviceable writing could have done with more descriptive detail.
I was also completely blindsided by the last 20 pages of the book, which came completely out of nowhere and just felt like Little didn’t have the confidence in an ending, and so added in a ‘dramatic moment’ to bring everything together.
A good book that had the potential to be great - there’s so much in Rosewater that is compelling, and I can’t wait to read what Little does next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident