Rescuing Rose by Isabel Wolff

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

Rescuing Rose was definitely well-written and sometimes charming. But I thought the story has been told a thousand times before in sort of the same way (woman loses everything husband, job, home, security) and romantic interest seemed a little 2-dimensional.

My main issue with the lead character is that she seemed like a controlling, emotionally constipated, angry shrew some of the time and I found her a bit difficult to like. I guess she comes across that way because her character feels abandoned and insecure, but while I sympathized, I just never grew to like her. She spends her whole life trying to get into other people's problems (she's an agony aunt for a newspaper) so she doesn't have to deal with her own, which I thought was a little too obvious of a characterization. And then, even while "helping" people, she comes across as snappish and rude, rather than actually warm and empathetic to the troubles of her "clients".

I liked the angle of the adoption of the main character as a baby and how that affects her whole outlook on life, but I felt that her issues sort of just go on and on and the "Resolution" seemed a little too perfectly packaged to be believable. Just feels like this woman should have taken herself to therapy years ago!

I also appreciated the fact that the character is 40 and Ms. Wolff didn't make the story into a whole Must Have Baby Now thing. Thank goodness for that.

The romantic interest seemed very underdeveloped as a character. You learn a few things about who he is and what he does, but even at the end of the book, I feel like I didn't really grow to love him because I just didn't know WHY he was attracted to her in the first place.

Skeptic's last word: This was an ok read. I would save it for a "slow" reading time. Like if you're between some heavy books and just need a palate cleanser. I think it was a little light on the "romance" angle, but it dealt sympathetically with a character whose issues revolve around feelings of inadequacy and abandonment.