What the Walrus Said: The Jealous Writer's Book Review: Rose by Holly Webb

I am a jealous person. Like, sooo jealous. I admit it freely and without shame. My Facebook feed makes me want to crawl into a hole and sob until I die. Seeing other people's publishing deals on Twitter make me want to eat my weight in chocolate. I'm sure most of you feel the same way and nobody's life is perfect, etcetera etcetera, but in the moment, it's hard to stop those emotions.

One of the things you're supposed to do as an aspiring author is read widely in your genre, i.e., scope out the competition. But it's kind of tough to do that when you feel like this:

Published books:

Me:

When I read other middle grade fiction, the jealous writer in me is 50% enjoying the good parts of the book and 50% picking it apart for flaws to make my own writing better. What's the point if not to improve, right?

I wasn't doing a great job of reading recent middle grade fiction until I got a Kindle for Christmas. Lurking around the young adult section of the library is awkward enough, although I could pass for a "young adult" if you ignore my wrinkles. But until I get over myself or steal a child, there's just no reason for me to be in the kid's section of the library. Plus, the stacks there are really short and I feel like Gulliver stalking around in Lilliput.

Now, with my trusty Kindle paperwhite, I can download all the kid's books my little jealous heart desires with no shame. And if I don't look at my credit card statement, it's like they all show up for free!

One of the first books I wanted to scope out was Rose by Holly Webb because it has a similar premise, setting, and main character to my manuscript and would attract the same readers.

Holly Webb is a lovely British author who has written approximately 50,000 books, mostly about kittens and puppies. So naturally, she makes me want to binge eat two tubs of chocolate frosting and then steal her life.

Rose is about an orphan named (drum roll please...) Rose who has natural magical abilities and is plucked out of her drab orphanage to go work in the house of a famous and wealthy alchemist. There is also a talking cat. Instant awesome.

Rose is a delightful heroine who likes to follow the rules but is full of pluck. My younger self would have identified with Rose a lot. I also really liked that Rose didn't feel sorry for herself about her situation. In fact, she felt grateful to be working and eager to find her place in her new home.

The best parts of the book for me were Rose and the magical world she lived in. I would have loved for the book to delve much deeper into the rules and history of the society, as it only skimmed the surface. There are several books in the Rose series and other related series in the same world, so I assume that if one continued reading, there would be more answers.

Now, here is the part of my review where I rub my hands and cackle with glee...the room for improvement. In some online reviews, people point out that the climax of the book is scary. I didn't find it particularly frightening because I felt confident in Rose's ability to fix things. But I could see how the lackadaisical pace from the first part could lead others to believe the ending wouldn't get so grim. Writing lesson: make sure your audience is prepared for a scary twist.

For me, one distracting part of the book was keeping two similar characters straight...Freddie is the "upstairs" protege of the alchemist while Bill is the "downstairs" servant friend. Both ended up being her friend, so it was hard to differentiate them. Writing lesson: make sure supporting characters serve different functions so they can be distinguished from each other.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Rose although I don't feel compelled to continue on with the series. I would whole-heartedly recommend it to middle-grade readers who like magical settings. When I finished, I was glad to find that it was different enough from the book I'm writing that I didn't throw my hands up in despair and chew off my fingernails.

But I'm still jealous of Holly Webb. She cannot be my friend on Facebook.