Rosie Girl

July 3, 2017
Seventeen-year-old Rosie’s best friend Mary has always been her savior. Desperate for cash—Mary wants to leave Miami, and Rosie needs to pay a private investigator to track down her birth mother—they hatch an unorthodox plan, with Mary trading sex for money. The business is both illegal and dangerous, quickly attracting the wrong kinds of attention, while Rosie’s alcoholic stepmother remains oblivious to it all. Through a series of shattering revelations, debut author Shepard unwinds a tale of dark secrets about family, trust, and identity. Clues to a final twist are peppered throughout, becoming more obvious as the story barrels toward an abrupt ending; readers will gradually recognize the unreliability of Rosie’s narration. Shepard paints a painful portrait of a teenage girl living on the fringe with few protections at her disposal. But supporting characters, including wild-child Mary and Rosie’s private investigator–turned–love interest, remain largely one-dimensional, and the novel doesn’t full delve into the issues of mental illness, addiction, and abuse that it raises. Ages 14–up. Agent: Leigh Feldman, Leigh Feldman Literary.

May 15, 2017
A psychological thriller promises scandal and drama. This novel seeks to intertwine two narratives. One is about white 17-year-old Rosie Velvitt and her physically and emotionally threatening home life, which pushes her to extremes (such as booking johns for her best friend, who turns tricks for cash) in order to find a birth mother she thought long dead. The other is about Rosie and her best friend, Mary Perkins (also white), and the truth about why their relationship seems to revolve around instances of explicit sexual violence. While the former enjoys rich development in a nuanced, first-person consideration of family, friendship, and the breaking points for both, the latter feels like a trauma-exploitative gimmick and rests on an implausible (though not impossible) manifestation of mental illness. In what seems to be a collision between Brock Cole's The Facts Speak for Themselves (1997) and Sonya Hartnett's Surrender (2006), the dropped hints and whiplash-inducing twist ending throw the entirety of the narrative prior to the last page into new light. While this may hit the mark for some Shyamalan-enthusiast readers, it will disappoint those less entertained by ugly tropes around mental health stigma or simply expecting an intentional inclusion of mental disability to be more thoughtful than a repellent plot twist. Several of the right ingredients languish under infelicitous execution. (Thriller. 14-17)

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June 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Rosie is anxiously awaiting the moment she can escape her emotionally abusive stepmother, Lucy, and Judd, her stepmother's leering boyfriend. Since her father died, Rosie's main support system has been her best friend Mary. Rosie finds a box that her father hid away for her, which reveals a long-held secret: her biological mother didn't die when Rosie was three. Wanting to learn more, Rosie decides to hire a private investigator. Mary raises the PI's fee by having sex with guys for money, much to Rosie's dismay. After meeting Mac, her investigator's nephew, and befriending Elaine while riding the public bus, Rosie continues to grow while Mary begins to pull away. Filled with unforgettable characters and expertly paced, the novel takes readers down many paths to an unexpected and shocking ending that packs a punch. However, there are a few loose threads, leaving readers to fill in the blanks. VERDICT This is a book teens will want to reread. Add to collections where E. Lockhart's We Were Liars is popular.-Stephanie Charlefour, formerly at Wixom Public Library, MI

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