Post by Charlynn on Feb 24, 2013 21:12:17 GMT -5
Roses by Leila Meacham
In a small town in East Texas, three families reign - The Warwicks with their lumber fortune, the DuMonts with their high-end department store, and the cotton planting Tolivers. Their friendship unites them; the rules of their friendship keep their bonds strong. Their businesses are never to mingle, loans between the families are never to be exchanged, and, if any party is ever wronged, a red rose for forgiveness is to be given, a white returned to symbolize that the apology has been accepted. For decades these unwritten laws were followed, but then sixteen year old Mary Toliver is made her father's heir, her mother and brother overlooked in favor of the only surviving Toliver with a passion for the family's plantation. It's because of this passion that Mary loses the only other thing she's ever loved as much in her life – a future with Percy Warwick. Sixty-five years later, she's determined to keep her great-niece from making her same mistakes and to prevent the Toliver curse of infertility and death from striking yet another generation. Unfortunately, Mary's actions might have the exact opposite effect.
Roses' jacket cover likens it to Gone with the Wind, but this is an unjust comparison which sets the novel up for inevitable failure. By likening Meacham's work to Mitchell's classic, lofty expectations are set, ones that Roses by no means delivers. Oh, the promise is certainly there. The book is a multi-generational tale stretching across families and decades. It takes place in a specific environment not often found today except for in the pages of such historical novels. And it contains great emotion, all things that are needed to make an epic, but an epic Roses certainly is not.
An epic doesn't just show its readers a story; it allows them to experience the story with the characters. Epics LIVE. Roses, on the other hand, glosses over what should have been the defining emotional moments. Not one, not two, but three wars feature predominantly in the novel's time frame and context, but not a single scene takes place on a battlefield or from a soldier's perspective. Instead, these great, monumental, life changing events take place outside of the book's pages and are merely mentioned in passing. This failure by Meacham produces a work that prevents readers from truly understanding why her characters do what they do. For example, rather than showing how powerful Percy's feelings for Mary are while he is away fighting during WWI, its mentioned as an afterthought. Books should show, not tell. This regretful trend is featured heavily throughout Roses. In fact, the author uses this same technique at the story's climax, offering little to no payoff to 600 pages of what could have been much more dramatic (and historically significant and honest) of a build-up. Sadly, Roses is a novel with unmet potential, an unworthy vehicle of the story it had the chance to tell.
Three out of Five Stars
In a small town in East Texas, three families reign - The Warwicks with their lumber fortune, the DuMonts with their high-end department store, and the cotton planting Tolivers. Their friendship unites them; the rules of their friendship keep their bonds strong. Their businesses are never to mingle, loans between the families are never to be exchanged, and, if any party is ever wronged, a red rose for forgiveness is to be given, a white returned to symbolize that the apology has been accepted. For decades these unwritten laws were followed, but then sixteen year old Mary Toliver is made her father's heir, her mother and brother overlooked in favor of the only surviving Toliver with a passion for the family's plantation. It's because of this passion that Mary loses the only other thing she's ever loved as much in her life – a future with Percy Warwick. Sixty-five years later, she's determined to keep her great-niece from making her same mistakes and to prevent the Toliver curse of infertility and death from striking yet another generation. Unfortunately, Mary's actions might have the exact opposite effect.
Roses' jacket cover likens it to Gone with the Wind, but this is an unjust comparison which sets the novel up for inevitable failure. By likening Meacham's work to Mitchell's classic, lofty expectations are set, ones that Roses by no means delivers. Oh, the promise is certainly there. The book is a multi-generational tale stretching across families and decades. It takes place in a specific environment not often found today except for in the pages of such historical novels. And it contains great emotion, all things that are needed to make an epic, but an epic Roses certainly is not.
An epic doesn't just show its readers a story; it allows them to experience the story with the characters. Epics LIVE. Roses, on the other hand, glosses over what should have been the defining emotional moments. Not one, not two, but three wars feature predominantly in the novel's time frame and context, but not a single scene takes place on a battlefield or from a soldier's perspective. Instead, these great, monumental, life changing events take place outside of the book's pages and are merely mentioned in passing. This failure by Meacham produces a work that prevents readers from truly understanding why her characters do what they do. For example, rather than showing how powerful Percy's feelings for Mary are while he is away fighting during WWI, its mentioned as an afterthought. Books should show, not tell. This regretful trend is featured heavily throughout Roses. In fact, the author uses this same technique at the story's climax, offering little to no payoff to 600 pages of what could have been much more dramatic (and historically significant and honest) of a build-up. Sadly, Roses is a novel with unmet potential, an unworthy vehicle of the story it had the chance to tell.
Three out of Five Stars