Wild Roses by Deb Caletti

Pub Date: August 2005

Summary: Cassie Morgan, a seventeen-year-old girl, knows what it’s like to live with a ticking time bomb.

Dino Cavalli, her stepfather, has everything together on the outside.

He’s a world-renowned violin player and composer.

But at home it’s a different story.

Cassie knows what he really is, a self-centered bully.

Things at home are starting to get worse now.

Dino never sleeps, he’s paranoid, he starts fights.

At first Cassie was just angry at her mother’s new husband, but now she’s growing afraid.

Then Ian Waters, Dino’s first violin student,enters the picture.

From the moment Cassie sees Ian; she can only imagine what’s going to happen.

She thought she knew that with love could bring pain with it.

But this friendship may have consequences no one ever imagined.

Rating: 4 Stars

Review: Wild Roses was a lot more than I ever expected. I’ve read a couple books by Deb Caletti before but so far nothing has been as memorable as this. I loved almost everything about this book. The relationships all of the characters had with one another were really believable. Cassie was such a great character, you couldn’t help but relate to her. I often found myself hating Dino right along with her. I, like Cassie and her father, didn’t understand why her mother put up with him the way she did. I think that’s why I loved this ending so much. It wrapped up almost everything, BUT the relationship between Cassie and Ian. Ian has probably made it on my list of my top five favorite guy characters. I fell in love with him right along with Cassie! The way the book ended between then really surprised me but I don’t really think it should have. I don’t think I could picture the ending of Wild Roses any different. It’s definitely worth the read.

-Lexi (: