Rose By Any Other Name

Another Australian author, I read Maureen McCarthy's Rose By Any Other Name. I really enjoyed it, as a light-hearted, quick read. There was a lot of teenage angst (which was probably more suited to a thirteen or fourteen year-old than a nineteen year old), but it was still convincing.

 



With good character development, the story is fairly simple and believable - it's just about families, and the various members of the family going through various crises. It was good not to read about perfect characters.
   The pace was really good - the timeline kept jumping from the present to events 12 months prior, which kept the story moving forward. The narrator jumped around, and gave very little away in the present-day narration, which was why the story kept jumping back to memories. The narrator wasn't reliable - the story was very tainted with emotion, but the narrator eventually became empathetic to the other characters, which symbolised the growth of the main character.
   For a good summer read on the beach, or a rainy weekend in bed, this is perfect.