The Recovery of Rose Gold, A Review

Mothers never forget, daughters never forgive.

Stephanie Wrobel’s The Recovery of Rose Gold (or Darling Rose Gold in some countries) follows mother and daughter duo Rose Gold and Patty Watts. For years when she was little, Rose Gold would get inexplicably sick to the point where she required feeding tubes and a wheelchair. Nobody could ever work out what was wrong with her, and for most of childhood Rose Gold suffered. It was only when she turned eighteen that she discovered she horrible truth, she was never sick, her mother was poisoning her all along.

Now five years later, after a lengthly prison sentence, Patty is released back into the world, back into the care of her daughter. The two move in together, into Patty’s childhood home along with Rose Gold’s infant son Adam. For the most part Rose Gold seems ready to forgive and forget but is everything really as it seems? Told from the view points of mother and daughter, The Recovery of Rose Gold tells a story of revenge, sickness and motherly love. Has Rose Gold really forgiven Patty after all these years or is she out for blood?

Munchausen by Proxy is such a disturbing, yet fasinating subject to read about (also seen in Sharp Objects and The Politician), so I really enjoyed delving more into Patty’s character and the reasons why she did what she did. It really takes a certian kind of person to deliberately hurt your own child and I liked how this book looked at the aftermath of such events. Is it really possible to forgive someome after they poison you for so many years? And how far would you go to get revenge?

Patty was such a fascinating character to read and I liked how Wrobel, despite her crimes, was still able to make her likeable. It was a weird feeling, reading Patty’s POV chapters and not instantly hating her, there were even moments when I began to question whether Patty could be innocent. I think that she was in such denial about what she’d done, that she was even able to convince readers of her ‘innocence’. Patty really was a great character to explore and I only wish we could have gotten more into her backstory, especially her childhood, to see why she turned out the way she did.

Rose Gold was also an interesting character to read and despite everything that had happened to her, I just didn’t feel much sympathy for her? It was really weird how I felt about these two characters, realistically I should have felt the oppisite but Wrobel had them written in a way that made you question everything. Behind her victim stance, Rose Gold did have a viciousness to her that was quite alarming at times. I did feel sorry for her because of how socially awkward she was but she definitely went about a lot of things in the wrong way, meaning I never knew how I really felt about her.

I liked how Wrobel used the alternating chapters between Patty and Rose Gold to slowly build up the story. Reading insights into Patty’s present and Rose Gold’s past helped frame the narrative and give readers an idea of where the story was heading. Through Rose Gold’s flashbacks we learn how she grew more and more hateful towards Patty and how her life spiralled, leading to her acts of vengance in the present.

The Recovery of Rose Gold really blurred the lines between good and evil, meaning niether Patty nor Rose Gold could be solely classified as a good or bad person. Despite what she did, Patty was still likeable and was trying to make amends whilst Rose Gold, despite her victim status, was far from innocent. Wrobel really showed throughout that no one is ever purely good or bad, everybody is a mix of different things and sometimes the villian in the story is the one you least expect.

Overall I really enjoyed reading The Recovery of Rose Gold. The subject matter was a fascinating one and Wrobel was able to create two compelling charaxters to guide the narrative. Patty and Rose Gold gave an interesting look at good and evil and how people aren’t always what they seem. The Recovery of Rose Gold was a brilliant tale of revenge with some really crafty characters, an instant must read.