Seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan lives with a time bomb (a.k.a. her stepfather, Dino Cavalli). To the public, Dino is a world-renowned violin player and composer. To Cassie, he's an erratic, self-centered bully. And he's getting worse: He no longer sleeps, and he grows increasingly paranoid. Before, Cassie 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. Cassie thought she understood that love could bring pain, but this union will have consequences she could not have imagined.
In the end, only one thing becomes clear: In the world of insanity, nothing is sacred....
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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.
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
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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.
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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.
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