Cover Image: Rosie Colored Glasses

Rosie Colored Glasses

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Member Reviews

Enjoyed this novel. While hard and tragic at times it felt very real and human. I enjoyed reading this and the characters were complex but engaging.

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Seeing the world th through Rosie colored glasses was ideal for Willow at times by t also she needs the routinely of Rec too after her mother and father divorce. Unless you have encountered and lived through a divorce, you do not know how it affects you are your loved ones. This book is an eye-opener and should be read by all so empathy and love for this dysfunctional family can bring an optimistic ending.

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This book started off interesting with the kooky Rosie falling in love with straight-laced Rex and he falls for her charm. They marry and have two kids, Willow and Asher.

The book goes back and forth in time starting with the love story and then moving forward from about 12 years later. Rosie tells the early story and her daughter tells the later story.

I kind of liked it at first, but it started feeling repetitive and I had to force myself to skim the last third of the book.

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I spent this book in part absolutely in love with Rosie myself. Even when I wanted to hate her, she was so busy breaking my heart that I couldn't. I spent a lot of time in this book just wanting to scream at the characters to just communicate. So many things could have been solved that way.

From a mother's standpoint, a lot of things made my heart break. Those kids, with so much innocence and naivete, having so much stress and pain brought down on them.

It is definitely an emotional journey, not a light read, even if it felt like a quick one because I couldn't stand to put it down. It left me feeling satisfied, but not full. It was definitely to sad for that.

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This book sounds fun and whimsical. It's not, it's dark and pretty sad. Told through the eyes of Willow, Rosie's daughter, we learn with her who Rosie really is.

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I know that this was published in February of 2018, but this is a back log review book from Netgalley. I was able to listen to this on audio and I enjoyed that experience. This is a sad story about a young girl whose mother suffers from Bipolar Disorder. When her parents split, she enjoys the days that she and her little brother get to spend with her care-free mom more than the time she spends with her prim and proper dad.

I was a bit emotional listening to this story but that is a sign of great writing. It did feel a bit young as the main character is just a child, but the accuracy of the mental illnesses depicted were poignant.

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Admittedly this book was on my shelf for so long that I was able to get it on audio. That may have ruined the book for me! The narrator can make or break an audio book and this was one of those situations where I felt the narrator killed the book. Her droning almost monotonous voice made me want to scream! I ended up speeding up the audio! The book itself read like a YA instead of contemporary fiction. My heart broke for Willow.

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Rosie Colored Glasses is an emotional and heart breaking read. To be honest, I was not expecting to be so moved and touched by this novel.

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I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Rex and Rosie were opposites in every way, yet fell in love. After their second child was born, however, Rex realized their relationship wouldn't work anymore and divorced Rosie. For their daughter, Willow, her mom's house has always been a place of love, fun, and feeling safe. Her dad's house has always been a place of rules and a lack of affection, so she lives for the days she is with her mom. Things are changing, though; will Willow be able to find the love she needs from her dad?

This book was a lot heavier than I had expected based on the cover, title, and blurb. The author did a good job of making you feel what the characters, especially Willow, feel. My only complaint about the book is that the epilogue didn't feel necessary. I feel like the rushed bit before the epilogue would have been a better choice to flesh out as a full epilogue chapter.

Among the heavy topics mentioned in this book: bullying, bipolar disorder, opioid addiction, suicide

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Seeing a mother's struggle with mental illness and addiction through the eyes of her daughter is both heartwarming and breaking, and so very very honest.

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This novel was slow to pull me in but it felt very real. Willow's s mother is a free spirit which seems wonderful but it is attached to her mental illness. Willow's father is not as expressive as her mother but he is reliable and there. It was heart breaking to read Willow's thoughts and emotions but in the end, very satisfying.

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Trigger warning for suicide and drug abuse.

I wanted to love this book so much. But it just didn't work for me.

The story is told from 2 different perspectives. We hear from Willow, the daughter of Rosie and Rex, as she struggles with having to go between her parents now that they are divorced. We also hear from Rosie and Rex when they first met and how they fell in love with each other. I really liked that we had these two perspectives because they made for a very interesting and well-rounded story. 

I think that the issues this novel explores are very interesting and deep, and deserve to be mentioned. It is definitely a sad and moving story. 

But the novel left me wanting more. 

I wanted to understand Rosie more and I wish the author had used this novel to give more of a platform for mental health issues. I wish that there had been more opportunities for the reader to connect with Rosie and Rex because they felt very awkward and stilted; the only time they came alive was when Willow was describing them and I felt like there was a missed opportunity here for readers to understand Rosie and Rex. 

The ending was sad but it felt unresolved for me. I finished this book wanting more from it and feeling like it missed the mark. For those reasons, I'm giving it a 2/5 stars.

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Willow is only 11 when her parents are divorced. The vastly differing parenting styles are explained as Rosie's manic side is revealed. It's a heavy subject and I wished I had liked it better.

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Rosie is an Asshole. Rosie has some serious issues. Rosie is the reason I kept reading this book.

This turned out to be a very sad tale and I felt so bad for Rosie. My afternoon with her was perplexing, wonderful, sad and very entertaining.

I can't say anymore without giving anything away. I can't do that. You need to read it. I will say that I did shed tears while reading this. A lot of tears.

Thanks to Harlequin (US & Canada) and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

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Eleven-year-old Willow hates that her parents are divorced. She hates that she and her brother have two separate lives: one filled with rules and sternness when they’re with their father, Rex; and one filled with laughter and crazy rituals when they’re with their mother, Rosie.

Willow knows how much her mother loves her. Every Spaghetti Sunday, late-night room-painting endeavor, or costumed reenactment of Rocky Horror Picture Show proves it. Her father just yells or gives her more lists to follow. Why can’t she live with her mother all the time?

Then her mother’s behavior changes, and Willow finds herself waking up at her father’s house when she’d fallen asleep at her mother’s. Her mother no longer wants to paint or sing or dance. Her father grows sterner. Willow has no idea what’s wrong, she just wants her old life back.

I wanted to love this book. It takes a heavy topic and explores it from the viewpoint of child who doesn’t know what’s going on. Rosie is a vibrant character, full of music and color and life, while Rex is rigid and rule-bound. The characters are very black-and-white, and the moments when they act out-of-character aren’t explained, just glossed-over. Perhaps the child’s viewpoint made this hard to relate to, but I kept stumbling over the wording and how everyone left Willow so clueless as to what was really going on.

(Galley provided by MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)

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Unfortunately I had issues with opening this on adobe.

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By the end of the first chapter, I knew that this book would not be quite as advertised. I somehow missed the whimsical part of this story, but it is definitely a heartbreaking and uplifting story.

It's beautifully crafted and touches on love, relationships, the effect of drugs on a family and a variety of other issues. I would definitely recommend this book.

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I absolutely loved everything about Rosie Colored Glasses. I loved the characters, i loved the story, and I loved the almost fairytale like writing. It is at times both heart breaking and heart lifting.

The main characters are Rosie - so exuberant and full of life, except when she isn’t. Rex - her husband, almost the exact opposite of Rosie. Their two children, Willow and Asher. Willow plays heavily in the story, Asher less so because he is so young.

The story of this family is told in two time frames. We learn from Rosie and Rex, how they met and fell in love. Then in the current time frame we follow Rosie, Rex and Willow.

When Rex and Rosie meet, Rex is almost overwhelmed by Rosie. She is so full of life, she feels everything, wants to experience everything. Rex is more rigid and structured, but he appreciates what he feels like when he is with Rosie. When Rosie becomes pregnant, they marry and try to make things work.

In the current day, they are divorced, the children’s time spent evenly between their homes. At Rosie’s house, there are no rules, only fun. Dance parties, impromptu trips to climb trees, and lots and lots of love and hugs and kisses. At Rex’s house, there are rules, checklists and a dad that doesn’t give hugs. Willow is especially effected by the differences in her parents. She is also a loner and outcast as school, preferring to listen to music and word searches, waiting until she can be with her mom again.

It’s not surprising that the children want to spend most of their time at their mom’s. But they don’t really understand what is happening with their mom.

As the two stories, the past and the current come closer and closer, we get a better feel for what is happening to Rosie. The novel doesn’t come right out and say she is bipolar, though she has her exuberant manic phases and her depressed phases. Her depression started right after the birth of her second child, which sounds like postpartum depression.

Heartbreaking and heart lifting.

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Here is a review by Jennifer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2323742338

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This novel tears you up inside - every word about Willow just broke my heart. Her mother, Rosie, is the force of nature in the story, and Wolfson unfolds the details of Rosie's mental illness - her exhilarating mania and her gut-hollowing depression - and addiction in a steady, methodical way via snippets of past and present, like a slow-motion trainwreck. Rex, Willow's father, affects her in a different way due to his inability to let go of control and his selfish unwillingness to try just a little harder for his daughter. He comes around eventually, but it's so frustrating that it takes such a profound tragedy to do so. This whole story is a big reminder that you never know what's really going on beneath the public mask that people choose to present.

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