Wild Roses [Hardcover]

Deb Caletti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2005

You would have never recognized the Dino I lived with in the books that had been written about him before the "incident." No one had a clue. No one seemed to see what was coming.

Seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan has a secret: She's living with a time bomb (a.k.a. her stepfather, Dino Cavalli). To the public, Dino is a world-renowned violinist and composer. To Cassie, he's an erratic, self-centered bully.

Dino has always been difficult, but as he prepares for his comeback concert, something in him begins to shift. He seems more high-strung than ever, set off by any little thing. He stops sleeping, starts chain-smoking. And he grows increasingly paranoid, saying things that Cassie is desperate to make sense of, but can't. So she does what she thinks she must: She tries to hide his behavior from the outside world. Before, she was angry. Now, she is afraid.

Enter Ian Waters: a brilliant young violinist, and Dino's first-ever student. The minute Cassie lays eyes on Ian she knows she's doomed. She tries everything to keep away from him, but is drawn to him in a way she's never felt before. It should be easy. It should be beautiful. It is not. Cassie thought she understood that love could bring pain. But this union will have consequences she could not have imagined.

As the novel crashes through two irreparable events and speeds toward its powerful end, one thing becomes clear: In the world of insanity, nothing is sacred.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. 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. Jennifer Hubert
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689867662
• ISBN-13: 978-0689867668
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,658,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

First of all, a confession. I am a literary addict. I read endlessly, voraciously. In lieu of a book, I will read cereal boxes (Cap'N Crunch breakfast jokes, Special K Heart Smart facts), shampoo bottles, pamphlets in doctors' offices about kidney stones and allergies (neither of which I have), and even those self exam charts with the little arrows going around in circles. My books are multiplying, becoming furniture themselves - end tables, nightstands. On one wall, I have a bookshelf, minus the shelf. I get restless, even sad, when I leave a fictional world I love and am not yet immersed in another. The highest compliment I've gotten about one of my books was from a reader who said she read slower as she approached its end, rationed out the remaining pages because she couldn't bear for it to be finished. Oh, joy. I knew just what she meant.

I was happily hooked at a young age. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was one of those quiet kids carting home a stack of books. Was? Still am. My mother says there were several years where they never saw me; they just shoved reading material and food under my door (not true, but pretty close). My parents said I'd mess up my eyes reading at night in the back of the car. They were probably right.

Writing, too, was part of my life since I was six or seven. I would get an idea, then bolt off to write it down. A hippie teacher of mine gave encouragement. "Groovy," he'd scrawl, and I had a sense I was on to something. After we moved to the Seattle area when I was twelve, I continued writing - short stories, bad poetry, and later, lyrics.

Being a writer was the only thing I ever wanted to be, but I didn't have the courage to study creative writing in college. I pictured rooms full of people wearing berets and dressed in all black, talking about Turgenev, which sounded a lot like the noise that escaped my throat whenever I was in one of those courses where they asked you to read your work aloud. I worried I wouldn't have the talent, since I didn't own a beret and never wanted one. So I studied journalism. I worked on the radio station, reading the news. What I learned more than anything was that I wasn't a journalist. I earned my B.A. degree from the University of Washington, got married, won the Nobel prize (just seeing if you were still awake) and did PR work. I got serious about fiction writing after my children were born. I didn't want to be one of those people who talked about their dream but never did anything about it. That seemed sad. I worried I would end up sitting alone at the counter at Denny's eating pie and smoking cigarettes, and I've never even smoked. So I made a decision. I would write and keep writing, at least until I was published. No giving up, no going back. I would have the determination and persistence of a dog with a knotted sock.

I read everything on the craft, studied, took notes, wrote and wrote, until finally, finally my fifth book, QUEEN Of EVERYTHING, was published. I would say I'm self-taught, but it isn't true - all my years as a reader, all of those authors I read, taught me. From Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. From Encyclopedia Brown to The World According to Garp. Books are what inspire me to write, and to write better. I believe in their power. Books teach empathy and define our lives and times. Writers are our truth tellers, and I strive for honesty in my writing. I want my readers to recognize their own experiences and to see our shared humanity in my work - our mistakes, our triumphs, our pain, those small moments of rightness. I want my readers to miss my characters when the book is set down. If my reader says, "Oh yes, that's just how it is. I know - that's how I feel, too," then I've done my job. I've given what I can to my fellow addict, and maybe, just maybe, I've added a piece to her nightstand.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully-crafted and moving novel, October 21, 2005

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Roses (Hardcover)

Having a stepfather is hard. Having a famous and crazy stepfather is harder. Having Dino Cavalli, world-renown violinist and composer, as your stepfather is nearly impossible. This is the challenge that seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan faces.

Cassie describes Dino as "both crazy and a genius." More specifically, he is "joy-impaired (hugely depressed), excessively imaginative (delusional), abundantly security conscious (paranoid as hell) or emotionally challenged (wacko)."

A good deal of Dino's paranoia is surrounded by his enemy and former agent, William Tiero. Dino hates Tiero so much that he bought the ugliest dog he could find and named it William. He liked to yell at and control the dog ("Get your nose out of the garbage, William!"). Things are starting to get far worse than naming a pet after his enemy. Now Dino thinks that William Tiero (the real one, not the dog) is out to get him. He swears that Tiero is stalking and spying on him. The paranoia only increases as Dino prepares for an important concert that will reveal new songs for the first time in years.

As Dino's behavior gets more erratic, Cassie becomes more frightened. It doesn't help that her mother is oblivious to Dino's behavior. Not to mention, her father is obviously still in love with her mother and has revealed that he is investigating Dino's background because he believes that something is not quite right.

In the midst of all the craziness of Cassie's home life, she finds herself falling in love at the impossibly worst time. Ian Walters is Dino's young student who is working towards winning a scholarship to a fancy music school. Even though Cassie knows that Ian has to focus on his music, she finds that her heart has a mind of its own.

WILD ROSES is a moving novel that is beautifully crafted. Deb Caletti has a way with words like her characters have with music. She reaches deep into the souls of her characters and stirs up emotions that readers will revel in. Caletti has already proven herself as a wonderful wordsmith with her past novels, and WILD ROSES doesn't let us down.

--- Reviewed by Kristi Olson

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taming the Wild, March 8, 2006

By 

Little Willow (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Roses (Hardcover)

Cassie's stepfather Dino is famous. The world knows him as a talented violinist. Cassie knows him as an unpredictable and violent man. As the story progresses, he nears the brink of self-destruction. You can almost hear the walls shake and see Cassie cringe when Dino raises his voice. Meanwhile, Cassie becomes involved with Ian, another violin virtuoso - and a student of Dino's.

While there are plenty of books out there about abusive significant others, there are few - especially those shelved in teen fiction - that confront mental illness or the dynamics of stepfamilies head-on. This book has both. It is honest and unflinching.

Deb Caletti imbues all of her stories with realistic sensibility and captivating characters. Make sure that you read not only Wild Roses but her other novels as well. You won't be sorry.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another fantastic YA book by Deb Caletti, October 2, 2005

By 

Willow (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wild Roses (Hardcover)

In my opinion, Deb Caletti is definitely underappreciated - her writing style very much like Sarah Dessen's, but she doesn't get the same recognition that Sarah does. I picked up WILD ROSES without even reading the summary, and I don't regret it at all.

WILD ROSES is about Cassie Morgan, a teenage girl that most readers will be able to relate to: her parents are divorced, she doesn't really like her mom's choice in men (at least, she doesn't like her step-father, world famous violin player, Dino), and she's afraid to fall in love.
That is, until Ian Waters comes along.
Cassie and Ian have a connection from the second they meet, and her unease with the situation is what makes the book so wonderful - she wants to be closer to him, but at the same time, she's not sure if that's what is best for her.

WILD ROSES is an incredibly realistic story about coping with divorce and falling in love for the first time. However, the book isn't all about being upset over divorce and falling for a boy - the most interesting (and heartbreaking) part is the storyline about Cassie's step-father, Dino, who is a time bomb waiting to go off.

Deb Caletti is amazing, and if you like Sarah Dessen books, or if you've read Caletti's other books (Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, and The Queen of Everything), you'll love this one too.