Novel Review: Rosebush by Michele Jaffe

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5

Genre: YA Mystery Romance

Publisher: RazorBill (Penguin)

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Instead of celebrating Memorial Day weekend on the Jersey Shore, Jane is in the hospital surrounded by teddy bears, trying to piece together what happened last night. One minute she was at a party, wearing fairy wings and cuddling with her boyfriend. The next, she was lying near-dead in a rosebush after a hit-and-run. Everyone believes it was an accident, despite the phone threats Jane swears were real. But the truth is a thorny thing. As Jane's boyfriend, friends, and admirers come to visit, more memories surface-not just from the party, but from deeper in her past . . . including the night her best friend Bonnie died.

With nearly everyone in her life a suspect now, Jane must unravel the mystery before her killer attacks again. Along the way, she's forced to examine the consequences of her life choices in this compulsively readable thriller.

The Cover:

I like both of the covers for this book. They're pretty, intricate, very fitting. I love the design of the roses and thorns, the colors, the creepy and mysterious feeling that it gives. They're overall just pretty to look at.

Quotes:

• "'Perception can make reality. Change one and you change the other.’” (Hardback, pg. 76)
• ""How do you know they’re happy? I think every smile hides a secret. You can learn the most about people when they don’t know you’re watching them.’” (Pg. 80)
• "'My mother believed you had to make your own luck, and in order to do that, you had to have skills.’” (Pg. 142)
• "'Someone once told me that flaws are what give people real beauty.’” (Pg. 192)
• "'People find patterns—the familiar—comforting, even if it’s unhealthy. It takes someone really brave to confess they’re wrong and try to make it right.’” (Pg. 277)

Review:

I rather enjoyed this book. I wasn’t sure if I would or not, but I did.

I liked being in Jane’s head, for the most part. I liked the development for her and the mystery, how that worked out, how it could very easily be taken as her hallucinating. I liked the psychological part of that. I liked how her relationships with her family developed, as well; that was nice.

I’m not sure how I feel about the boys. There were a few, and I wasn’t sure who she was going to be with. I also thought there was going to be more focus on the romantic parts, but there wasn’t very much. Given that Jane tended to like whoever liked her, I didn’t think that she really grew out of that by the end of the book. But I can be happy with whom she ended up with; I liked him.

I didn’t really guess who the murderer was by the end, but I wasn’t terribly surprised. I was suspicious, though. I quite like how it wrapped up, too. There were several other surprising plot points, though; like Ollie, and Scott, and Kate in general.

On the other hand, there were still a few loose strings that didn’t quite wrap up as much as I would have liked. For instance, what happened at her old school. I would have liked more of that, but oh well.

Overall, I did rather enjoy this book. It was a bit exciting, I liked getting to know the characters, and how it all worked out.