A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Thank you to the publisher, Inkyard Press, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of A Forgery of Roses in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist
I remember requesting “Sing Me Forgotten” last year through NetGalley; I was so excited by the premise that I just had to read it. Got declined and haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
When I got invited to join the blot tour to promote A Forgery of Roses I could barely contain myself.
Fast forward to just about now and all I can think of is “oh farts”. This is not going to be fun.
Ever had a book that made your brain itch? A book that you had to stop reading before that big blue vein inside your head pops? Yup, I’m pretty much there right now.
No kidding. What the heck did I just read?
And did I mention that A Forgery of Roses is listed by Goodreads as one of 68 most anticipated YA novels of 2022?
The Details
Honestly, I can’t get past the world building or serious lack thereof. What is this world? Where is this world? What bloody time period are we in?
These are the questions I was actually shouting at the book while I was reading it.
Please, someone explain to me how a population that is capable of producing plastic thinks that the best mode of transportation is a horse-drawn carriage. What am I missing.
The language in A Forgery of Roses equally got me all hot and bothered. At one point a character says “What the hell”, which is quite modern. A few pages later we have another character using the word “hence”, a relatively old/classic word to use.
It’s not like the reader is thrown out of the story when such discrepancies happen. There is no world that has been established in the first place!
I really did not care about the characters at all, because I couldn’t get past the mess of a narrative A Forgery of Roses is.
Plot is also all over the place. Is it a story about forbidden magic? Or a bloody murder mystery?
The Verdict
Overall, I have to stop this review before I start pulling out my hair. This has been the most frustrating story I have read in a while.
Again, this seems to be a rather unpopular opinion I’m having, but I can’t help myself. There was nothing redeeming or interesting about A Forgery of Roses.
It’s a pass for me.
About the Author
Jessica S. Olson claims New Hampshire as her home but has somehow found herself in Texas, where she spends most of her time singing praises to the inventor of the air conditioner. When she’s not hiding from the heat, she’s corralling her four wild—but adorable—children, dreaming up stories about kissing and murder and magic, and eating peanut butter by the spoonful straight from the jar. She earned a bachelor’s in English with minors in editing and French, which essentially means she spent all of her university time reading and eating French pastries. She is the author of Sing Me Forgotten (2021) and A Forgery of Roses (2022).
