The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway gives you a lead character, Gal Garner, who in an odd way manages to be both unlikeable and endearing at the same time. I spent the entire book deciding if I did or didn't like her. Gal, a biology teacher at a private school in California, suffers from kidney disease and has been on dialysis for the last eight years. Before that, she has undergone two kidney transplants and is fighting to get back on the list for a third. She is a hard nosed woman, who never questions if she is right or wrong, she is simply always right. She lives alone, gardens all the time in an attempt to produce an award winning new species of rose, and seems relatively oblivious to her own cantankerous nature.
But then her fifteen year old niece shows up on her door step and slowly begins to change Gal. The change is gradual, and not at all perfect, but it feels real. The characters of this story are so well written, even when you don't agree with them, you always seems to understand them. The book reminds you that people and roses are really very alike, they are actually more beautiful because of their thorns. You just have to know how to handle them correctly, and eventually just accept them for who they are.
We will be discussing The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns over at the BlogHer Book Club this month. Come join the conversation!
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