I hesitated a long time to write this review because I've never been sure what to say. On the positive side, Hill's prose has a spare beauty that often arrested me and made me reread passages for the sheer use of language. That spareness is a big part of the negative side as well, however; this often seems more like the plan for a book than an actual book. The characters are underwritten and the narrator Rosie's affect extremely flat; even before her near-overdose, there are no textual clues that she's in crisis. My main objection to the book is that an act of sexual violence by David's father is too easily dismissed, and without consulting the victim; the fact that it leads to later tragedy, while foreseeable, seems beside the point. ( )

I started this book and was thinking I was going to like it, but it never gained traction, and it sat on my shelf (still does) waiting to be finished, but I have just never been able to bring myself to do it. Maybe it was too amorphous. I know that I never connected iwth the characters. Frankly, it was just boring. ( )

Love this time period. Love this subject matter. I was very excited to snag a copy of this book in the early reviewers program. I dove into it as soon as I received it. Then I put it down for a week. Then picked it up again and put it down. Took me forever to finish it. It wasn't bad exactly but for such an interesting subject matter the book sure did drag. ( )

I really wanted to like this book. It's set in a time period that I'm interested, and between the photography, music, and romance, I figured the blend of topics would be interesting. Unfortunately, it just dragged on. It wasn't bad, just nothing I'd want to re-read or recommend.

Rosie comes of age in '60s California, and ends up with one of the rock musicians she photographs. The couple cope with the rock and roll excesses of the time, as well as their own personal tragedies. The book dragged a bit for me. ( )