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A review by bookph1le
Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel
3.0
(Note: Believe it or not, I had never even heard of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case before writing this review. Reading other GR reviews of this book brought it to my attention. So my review is based purely on my seeing this book as a work of fiction.)
My overall response to this book was rather tepid. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either. This may be because, although I thought the author did a pretty good job handling her characters' psychology, the out-there premise gave the book a soap opera-esque feel. Part of my challenge with finding good thrillers is my preference is for something that feels more grounded, or if it's over-the-top, it has to be a certain kind of over-the-top (closed environment books always work better for me in this respect). Unfortunately for me--but fortunately for readers who prefer these books--the thriller genre is one that seems to have trended toward the big, dramatic concept. Some spoilers ahead.
I think what also bothers me is I'm sensing a certain same-ness to a lot of the thrillers I read these days. There's an overabundance of female characters who have this weird sense of something like entitlement. It's not hard to imagine how going through what Rose Gold went through would screw someone up big time, but I kept wondering why Rose Gold felt entitled to the things she felt entitled to. Characters like Rose Gold make these hugely flawed leaps in logic, thinking that their wish for love or comfort or wealth or whatever means other people owe them things. It's like they go from 0 to 60 without ever hitting 30. When I can't understand why a character thinks they deserve something, it's really hard for me to feel invested in them.
I think my other problem with books like these is that the female characters' sense of what punishment fits the crime is also so over the top. I completely get why Rose Gold might want revenge on her mother, but the extremes she goes to when it comes to her father were harder for me to parse. There's a lack of subtlety there that either feels like rushed writing or bad writing, neither of which are a good thing.
My overall response to this book was rather tepid. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either. This may be because, although I thought the author did a pretty good job handling her characters' psychology, the out-there premise gave the book a soap opera-esque feel. Part of my challenge with finding good thrillers is my preference is for something that feels more grounded, or if it's over-the-top, it has to be a certain kind of over-the-top (closed environment books always work better for me in this respect). Unfortunately for me--but fortunately for readers who prefer these books--the thriller genre is one that seems to have trended toward the big, dramatic concept. Some spoilers ahead.
I think what also bothers me is I'm sensing a certain same-ness to a lot of the thrillers I read these days. There's an overabundance of female characters who have this weird sense of something like entitlement. It's not hard to imagine how going through what Rose Gold went through would screw someone up big time, but I kept wondering why Rose Gold felt entitled to the things she felt entitled to. Characters like Rose Gold make these hugely flawed leaps in logic, thinking that their wish for love or comfort or wealth or whatever means other people owe them things. It's like they go from 0 to 60 without ever hitting 30. When I can't understand why a character thinks they deserve something, it's really hard for me to feel invested in them.
I think my other problem with books like these is that the female characters' sense of what punishment fits the crime is also so over the top. I completely get why Rose Gold might want revenge on her mother, but the extremes she goes to when it comes to her father were harder for me to parse. There's a lack of subtlety there that either feels like rushed writing or bad writing, neither of which are a good thing.