The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway

Another month, another BlogHer book club book! This month's selection was The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway. Dilloway is the author of How to Be an American Housewife which lots and lots of bloggers read last year (I did not. Full disclosure, I judged it by the cover, that type of cover turns me off. Don't ask me to explain "that type".) Care and Feeding is about practical, no-nonsence Gal Garner. Gal teaches biology at a small private school, which managing to live with no kidney function and every other day dialysis.  Her passion in life is breeding roses and she's trying to develop a new variation that will win her major awards. Life is going along according to plan- her job is secure, her roses are thriving, and her kidneys haven't killed her yet- when her teenaged niece Riley shows up unexpectedly to live with her.

Unfortunately, I wasn't overly impressed with the book. Some authors have a way of making unusual things like rose breeding interesting, but I wasn't caught up by this one. The storyline with Riley felt a bit predictible (will having your long lost niece around make you soften up? be less thorny than roses? roses with thorns?) and the ultimate ending wasn't much of a surprise.

I took a peek at rating on Goodreads and it seems that I'm in the minority here, the average rating is a 4.  The BlogHer discussion takes off today at this link, and you can find the author on the web here, or on twitter.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.