FOREVER ROSE

The last of the Casson books by Hilary McKay, and a rather disappointing ending. It continued the switch to first-person narration begun (detrimentally, as I noted last month) in Caddy Ever After, and worse, this one was written entirely from Rose’s point of view. The series has become more and more Rose-centric with each passing book, and here I found her especially annoying—verging on pathologically self-centered in the first half. (It didn’t help that she hated books; how could I sympathize with that? Even though she learned to like reading later on, it made me want to shake her in the meantime.) As usual, I was most interested in what was happening to Caddy, and as usual, Caddy made the fewest appearances. It was still a pleasant enough read, but it paled in comparison with the first three. Now I guess McKay is blogging from Rose’s POV, so apparently Rose is a hit with the youngsters, if not with me. I might try reading McKay’s older series, The Exiles, next, but my library only has one of the three books, so it will entail a trip to the downtown L.A. library first.