This was an easy and pleasant read. It was predictable, but I was interested enough to find out how the story would unfold. I find I enjoy books that do a good job of incorporating information about real topics - in this case, roses and dialysis/kidney transplants. Interesting characters and situations. Plausible outcomes. Everything wasn't completely tied up with a bow at the end and that was fine.I may check out her other book sometime. Gal (short for Galilee--her parents had visited Israel before her birth) Garner is a thirty-six-year-old who lives a very disciplined regimen, primarily because she has spent much of her life in a hospital as a result of kidney disease. Every other night she is on dialysis. By day, she is a biology teacher in a small Catholic high school, with hardly any significant relationships aside from her mother. She lives a strict schedule even at home. The only place she experiences life and freedom is in her gardens and her greenhouse, where she takes great delight in experimenting with Hulthemia roses, cross-pollinating in attempts to create a new rose variation, hoping that some day she will have a rose of stunning beauty in color, petal, blotch, and most importantly, fragrance. Her ambition is to win Queen of Show in a major rose competition, and then to enter the rose market. Being a rosarian demands as much structure and precision in "the care and handling of roses with thorns" as the rest of her life. In Gal's own words, "Difficult and obstinate. Thriving under a set of specific and limited conditions. That pretty much describes me. Maybe that’s why I like these roses so much."On a day in her ordinary routine, her life is dramatically interrupted when she is called to the principal's office--to discover that Riley, her sister Becky's fifteen-year-old daughter has come to live with her because she has nowhere else to go. Riley's life has been chaotic since birth, with her parents divorcing, her father in and out of her life, her mother drinking and drugging. Riley has bounced from parents to grandparents to parent--and she's wearing her depression and angst in makeup, hair, clothes, demeanor. This time Becky has taken a job which demands that she live in Asia for a few months, and because she'll be traveling, she can't take Riley with her--or so she says, thinks Gal. Because Gal is angry at her sister and because she wants so much for Riley to have what she's never had, she agrees to Riley's staying with her. As the relationship develops between the two, we see Riley "blooming"--but also Gal faces herself, faces her own "thorns," and begins to confront and move from her "elder brother" attitude towards acceptance, forgiveness, and love. The plot is multi-faceted, but focused on Gal and Riley. Each of the primary characters grows throughout novel, individually and within relationships. Each is initially isolated within their own walls, struggling with their own hurt, but the walls begin to crack and eventually the characters accept themselves and thus others.When Becky returns to the States and wants Riley to come live with her, Gal, in typical fashion, confronts Becky with her past and her lack of parental responsibility. That leads to Becky voicing her own frustration and aloneness while growing up as a result of all her parents' attention going to Gal; she thinks her entire life has been defined by Gal's illness (Gal thinks that about her life too!). This confrontation leads to enlightenment for each of them. Will Riley go? Stay? Run away? Will Becky's new sense of responsibility last? Will Gal ever get a kidney transplant? Will she find romance? Will she win a Queen of Show? Margaret Dilloway has captured universal themes in family dynamics and the power of love and forgiveness. In addition, the science of not only tending, but also breeding the most lovely of flowers is a thread throughout, which is set against the tending of relationships which often leads to new beauty and fragrance in individuals, even with their thorns. Included are pages from Gal's Rose Notebook, with the genealogical charts of Gal's work in attempting to develop her spectacular rose--an inclusion which serves to remind this reader of the importance of family, legacy, heritage, and nature, as well as nurture, in our lives. Dilloway also includes pages from Winslow Blythe's Complete Rose Guide, which makes real the rigors of rose growing, with specific tasks for each month of the year, an interesting device to also indicate the movement of time in the novel. Winslow Blythe's appearance at the rose show and convention of the American Rose Society adds to the significance of the awards ceremony for Gal. Margaret Dilloway captured my imagination with characters, plot, theme, and conflict. An excellent read!
Do You like book Die Liebe Zu Rosen Mit Dornen (2013)?
I found the writing so hard to get through that I didn't even care to finish. I liked the premise.
—Ambyr
A typical "cozy read". Not many stories surprises, but interesting about the roses.
—Maddie
It started out really slow. But I ended up really enjoying it.
—Manuella
Loved the book, but the end...well, I was waiting for more!
—Emilie
