Wild Roses

Starred review from November 28, 2005
Caletti (The Queen of Everything
) again plays with themes of passion and recklessness in this rich novel. Cassie never liked Dino Cavalli, a "world-renowned composer and violinist, a combination of talent virtually unheard of," the man her mother married five days after divorcing her father. When he goes off anti-depression medication to compose new works, he becomes paranoid. Meanwhile, Cassie, who "had had enough of people of passion," prefers astronomy to music. Yet she falls in love with Dino's student, Ian, a violin prodigy with his own family secrets. Cassie's first-person narrative will sweep up readers, and her exploration of the fine line between madness and genius alternates between humor and painful truth. (The book's title comes from Van Gogh's Wild Roses
, one of the paintings he completed just before his suicide.) The author builds the tension well: as Dino's concert approaches, Cassie's father finds holes in Dino's Italian childhood (memorialized in a biography); Dino thinks his former agent is stalking him; and Ian looks worn as his music school audition nears. Some characters may seem less credible (e.g., Ian's stepbrother and Cassie's eccentric grandmother) but only by contrast with a cast of otherwise full-blooded characters, including Cassie's mother, who grows thin trying to control Dino's insanity, but closes her eyes and smiles when he performs ("gone to wherever music and passion can take her"). In the end, readers will empathize with each trapped character, even Dino himself. Ages 12-up.

Starred review from November 1, 2005
Gr 9 Up -Seventeen-year-old amateur astronomer Cassie Morgan wants a -normal - life, but that possibility flew out the window three years earlier when her musician mother, divorced five days, married famous violinist Dino Cavalli. Living with arrogant Dino is like walking on eggshells, and the usually competent, clearheaded teen believes he has the unique ability to make her feel -incapable to the point of needing to be institutionalized. - Any little thing sets him off, and the problem only gets worse when he stops taking his depression medication while he prepares for his huge comeback concert. When Ian Waters, a promising -and poverty-stricken -young violinist, shows up for lessons with the maestro, Cassie falls in love at first sight despite her belief that passion only brings about pain. Dino demands that the two stay away from one another to avoid compromising the young man's focus, but that is impossible. And as Dino's concert and Ian's scholarship audition draw closer, even Cassie's loving mother can't protect her from Cavalli's escalating bizarre and paranoid behavior. With its profound observations and vivid, if occasionally profane, language, this multifaceted and emotionally devastating novel will stick with readers." -Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2005
Gr. 7\endash 10. Caletti explores relationship between genius and madness in her third novel set in the Pacific Northwest. Cassie is the stepdaughter of violin virtuoso Dino Cavalli. Wild Roses is the name of the van Gogh painting that hangs over Dino's desk, and like the painter, Dino is mentally ill. Dino controls his delusions with medication, but as an anticipated comeback concert approaches, he stops taking it. Always bullying and brutish, Dino grows increasingly paranoid, but Cassie tries to balance her anger toward her father with her growing affection for his talented student, Ian. When tragedy strikes at the concert, Cassie discovers the relationship between passion and insanity, and comes to realize how her mother could love someone like Dino. Caletti's hyperbolic, endless-sentence style occasionally overwhelms her otherwise compelling story, but the sincerity of her message shines through in Cassie's descriptions of other historically troubled artists, her parents' painful divorce, and her own new romance. A good selection for mother-daughter book clubs. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)