Book Review: 'Roses' by Leila Meacham

Every once in awhile I read an actual novel, usually to cleanse myself from becoming too much like a teenage girl chatting about vampires and to remove my immediate vocabulary of phrases like bulging member, heaving corset and waistcoat and breeches.

Usually my forays into real books involve some sort of history and girl power.  Roses by Leila Meacham does not disappoint.

Cover:  No corsets or Damon Salvatore to be found... this must be a REAL book!

Spanning decades this book covers from the beginning of the 1900's to 1985.  Readers are taken through various wars and major events in American history and Meacham does a fantastic job of describing life in a small town in the South (does Texas count as the "South"?  Because I had a hard time not thinking this book was set in Georgia the whole time I read it.

The characters are predictable in some ways, but still interesting enough to keep the book moving through it's 700 pages (yes, I said 700 pages).

There is Mary Lamb Toliver DuMont, I won't call her a heroine because readers will often want to shake her (why are all female characters such bull headed creatures in literature?).  Just think this:

There is Percy Warwick, the doomed lover of Mary who has his own streak of this:

Except, this story does not end how you think it does.  Much like Gone with the Wind there is not a happy clean cut ending, although I admit, if you ever read Scarlett they try darn hard to give us one... but we simply don't want it.  Something about star-crossed lovers being forever star-crossed can be alluring and can make the story much more lasting.

Overall, I say this book is worth the bulk.  The characters are complex and you are left at the end of the book feeling like Meacham told the whole story.