Book Review: Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel

Title: Darling Rose Gold
Author: Stephanie Wrobel
Pages: 320 pages
Expected publication: March 17th 2020 by Berkley

GoodReads Description: "Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife in this tightly drawn debut that peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships...

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold.

Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar.

After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes.

Patty insists all she wants is to reconcile their differences. She says she's forgiven Rose Gold for turning her in and testifying against her. But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty Watts always settles a score.

Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling...

And she's waited such a long time for her mother to come home."

MY REVIEW:

"You have lain in bed at night thinking of all the exquisite ways you could punish the person who wronged you. You know the one - even now, their face hovers in your mind. If only, you think, not daring to finish the thought.

The difference between you and me is follow-through."

Holy psychopaths, Batman!

I loved this book!  Feel like journeying into the mind of a crazy lady? Read on.

Darling Rose Gold is the story of Rose Gold and her mother.  Rose Gold has spent the first 16 years of her life being sick.  No one knows whats wrong with her.  Except maybe her mother... 

The story is told in alternating timelines from Rose Gold's perspective and her mother, Patty's.  Rose Gold's perspective begins shortly after her mother goes to prison for aggravated child abuse following 16 years of terrorizing Rose Gold via Munchausen by proxy.  Patty's perspective begins the day she is released and goes back to their small hometown to stay with Rose Gold.

Anyone else live in a small town?  Yeah, you can assume that's not going to go well.  

Anyways, partly because it is told in this style, the book does a good job of not giving up all its secrets at once.  Which is part of why this book was such a great read for me!  I couldn't BELIEVE the way Rose Gold's perspective progressed. 

GoodReads' description is so incredibly apt when it says "Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife"!!! So if you liked either of those books - and I think especially Sharp Objects (which is one of my all-time favorites) - then you NEED this book!  I can't believe I almost passed on reading this book, don't make that mistake!  

5 b*tches be crazy stars!  

P.S. So many lines in this book were incredibly quotable.  But possibly my favorite is this gem: 

"I should have known today would be a bad day - I found a calculator in the middle of the street this morning."

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!