Blurb:

Her life has changed and no one has told her the new rules. So she’ll just have to make up her own… 

Seventeen-year-old Rose and her thirteen-year-old brother, Rudder, have escaped a strict religious sect. Goodbye, rigid rules about everything; hello, mobile phones and make-up. But there’s loads of stuff in their new life that Rose has zero idea how to handle. It’s totally normal for girls to let their boyfriends take topless pictures of them, right…?

When Rudder accidentally sets a devastating chain of events in motion, Rose must decide whether to sacrifice everything and return to the life she hates, to save the people she loves.

A STORY ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF WHEN YOU’RE LOST IN AN UNFAMILIAR WORLD.

About The Author: Patrice Lawrence

(From her Goodreads author profile)

Patrice Lawrence is a British writer and journalist, who has published fiction both for adults and children. Her writing has won awards including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Older Children and The Bookseller YA Book Prize. 

What I Thought:

Rose, Interrupted is one of those books that really got inside my head. I was thinking about it for days after I finished it – partly wondering what happened next, and partly just processing everything that happened within the pages of the story.

The writing style is engaging and easy to read, the characters are interesting and feel realistic, but it took me about 150 pages to get to a place where I didn’t have to stop every couple of chapters to ‘cool off’. Because WOW religious cults are mind bending.

Their rules, the complete alien way of living compared to the ‘outside world’, is bonkers. And for two teenagers to go from that to inner-city London life with school, and boys, and the internet, and Harry Potter… it’s quite frankly a terrifying proposition.

So it is no wonder that they make mistakes. They make mistakes that would be unforgivable in any other circumstance, but are totally understandable in their situation.

Understandable doesn’t make them any less wrong though.

Once the ball got rolling, I didn’t want to stop reading. Even when I knew what was going to happen and had to just sit there and watch it unfold like a car crash in slow motion, I had to keep reading because Rose and Rudder were both lovely characters and I needed for them to figure it all out and help make it better.

Honestly, I just wanted to give Rudder the most enormous hug for a lot of the book.

The hope running through the whole story though, is beautiful and uplifting – even when the story gets heavy and your heart s hurting.

A great read for anyone over 14 or so.

My Rating:

5/5*

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